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Suddenly Kemmerich groans, and there is rattling in his throat.

I’m on my feet, rush outside and ask, ‘Where’s the doctor?’ I see a white coat and grab hold of it. ‘Please come quickly or Franz Kemmerich will die.’

He pulls away from me and says to a hospital orderly who is standing nearby, ‘What’s all this about?’

The orderly replies, ‘Bed twenty-six, amputation at the upper thigh.’

‘How should I know anything about it?’ the doctor snaps, ‘I’ve done five leg amputations today.’ Then he pushes me out of the way, tells the orderly, ‘Go and see to it,’ and rushes off to the operating room.

I’m shaking with anger as I follow the orderly. The man looks round at me and says, ‘One operation after the other since five o’clock this morning – crazy, I tell you; just today we’ve had another sixteen fatalities – your man will make seventeen. There’s bound to be twenty at least —’

I feel faint; suddenly I can’t go on. I don’t even want to curse any more – it’s pointless. I just want to throw myself down and never get up again.

We reach Kemmerich’s bed. He is dead. His face is still wet with tears. His eyes are half open, and look as yellow as old-fashioned horn buttons.

The orderly nudges me. ‘Taking his things with you?’

I nod.

‘We’ve got to move him right away,’ he continues. ‘We need the bed. We’ve already got them lying on the ground out there.’

I take the things and undo Kemmerich’s identity tag[63]. The orderly asks for his pay book[64]. It isn’t there. I say that it is probably in the guard room, and leave. Behind me they are already bundling Franz on to a tarpaulin.

Once I get outside, the darkness and the wind are a salvation. I breathe as deeply as I can, and feel the air warmer and softer than ever before in my face. Images of girls, fields of flowers, of white clouds all pass rapidly through my mind. My feet move onwards in my boots, I am going faster, I’m running. Soldiers come towards me, their words excite me, even though I can’t understand what they are saying. The whole earth is suffused with power and it is streaming into me, up through the soles of my feet. The night crackles with electricity, there is a dull thundering from the front line, like some concerto for kettle drums[65]. My limbs are moving smoothly, there is strength in my joints as I pant with the effort. The night is alive, I am alive. What I feel is hunger, but a stronger hunger than just the desire to eat —