So we go off to the fowl-house to wake them. But first we pack away the feathers.
Kropp and Tjaden take us for magicians. Then they get busy with their teeth. Tjaden holds a wing in his mouth with both hands like a mouth-organ, and gnaws. He drinks the gravy from the pot and smacks his lips:
"May I never forget you!"
We go to our hut. Again there is the lofty sky with the stars and the oncoming dawn, and I pass on beneath it, a soldier with big boots and a full belly, a little soldier in the early morning—but by my side, stooping and angular, goes Kat, my comrade.
The outlines of the huts are upon us in the dawn like a dark, deep sleep.
CHAPTER VI
There are rumours of an offensive. We go up to the front two days earlier than usual. On the way we pass a shelled school-house. Stacked up against its longer side is a high double wall of yellow, unpolished, brand-new coffins. They still smell of fir, and pine, and the forest. There are at least a hundred.
"That's a good preparation for the offensive," says Müller astonished.
"They're for us," growls Detering.