THE LAST NIGHT
I am lying in bed, and counting a hundred slowly. It must be close on midnight now, and I am still unable to get to sleep.
The room resounds to the noise of snoring. They are lying to the right and left of me, and if I turn over on my back, I am staring up at the wooden planking of a bed. For the cots extend all along the wall from door to window, one above the other, and in every cot a soldier is lying asleep.
Now and again one or other tosses about, and rolls heavily over to the other side.
Further away, near the window, some one is mumbling in his sleep. Suddenly he shouts out aloud: "And that wasn't me. I ain't touched a bit of the wire. D'you take me for a thief?"
It sounds exactly as if he were wide-awake. I am on the point of speaking to him. Then all is silence again, and I lie listening intently for what is going to happen next. But he keeps quiet, and goes on dreaming. He is still in the midst of his workshop; yet tomorrow he is going to be carted out to war.
And nothing but sleeping and snoring men all round me.
Wonder if any one else in barracks is lying wide-eyed and staring into the future?
My thoughts flit homeward. Wonder whether she slept well to-night? Wonder if she has chanced to be thinking of me? Wonder how the little chap is getting on? His teeth were giving him trouble.... It is not good to marry so young; the unmarried men who are called out now are better off. Wonder whether the war will last long? We have put by a little nest-egg. But what's the good of that in these times of famine prices? The allowance for wife and children is so small that it won't even cover rent. Where's she to turn for money when the post-office savings book is finished? She will have to go out sewing. But what's to happen when hundreds of thousands of others have to go out sewing too? Well, then she will have to start a little business, open a greengrocer's shop. But what's to happen when hundreds of thousands of others have to start a shop?
The State is taking charge of your wives and children, that's what it said in the regimental orders yesterday. Well, there is no use in imagining the very worst at the start. The war may be over quickly. Perhaps it will never get as far as big battles. Perhaps they will think better of it, and give way yet.
And then my mind feels at ease again. In spirit I see myself back again at my office-desk and writing invoices. A glance at the clock—it's close on the hour—only a few more strokes of the pen. So let's finish up quickly. Let's hang up our office coat on the nail and slip into another. And then get out into the street, for Dora must be waiting supper.
By this time we have already reached the bridge by the Town Hall, with the two big triple lamps.... Who is standing there by the railing of the bridge, and gazing down into the canal so motionlessly? It's a woman. She must have run straight out of the kitchen, for her apron-strings are hanging to the ground behind her anyhow. And all of a sudden her red-striped skirt strikes me as so familiar, and as I pass behind her she turns round without a word, and looks at me wild-eyed.
"Dora, is that you?"
Then she bows her face, streaming with tears, and says dully to herself:
"They have shot my husband dead."
"But, Dora," I shout to her anxiously—for it suddenly flashes upon me that she is ill—"why, here I am! Don't you know me any more?"
But she shakes her head, and turns away from me comfortless, and passes me by like a stranger.
"Dora!" I shout aloud, "Dora!" and stretch out my arms toward the vanishing figure. A sob chokes my throat....
Then I start, and am sitting up in bed, resting on my elbow. Through the window sounds the long-drawn reveille. Dawn is peeping through the panes.
So I did nod off after all, and I did not have a pleasant dream. But I have no time to be grumpy over it, for footsteps are ringing along the corridor. Hobnail boots clatter across the floor. The door is flung open.
"Turn out!" a cheery voice shouts in.
It is the sergeant on duty. By this time he has already reached the next door. And sleepy figures are rising from their cots, yawning and stretching their arms; are turning out and slipping, shivering with cold, into their clothes. Yawning, they stretch their limbs and flap their arms until the second more welcome morning signal, "Breakfast rations," lends life and animation to fasting men.