All Quiet on the Western Front by Erica Maria remark chapter one we are at rest five miles behind the front yesterday we were relieved and now our bellies are full of beef and hurricane beans we are satisfied in at peace each man has another mess tin full of the for the evening and what is more there is a double ration of sausage and bread that puts a man and fine trim we have not had such luck as this for a long time the cook with his karity head is begging us to eat he beckons with his Ladle to everyone that passes and spoons out a great dollop he does not see how he can empty his Soup pot in time for coffee Chardon and Mula have produced two wash basins and have them filled up to the brim as a reserve in Jordan This veracity is in Mueller it is foresight where Jordan puts in puts it all as a mystery for he is and always will be as thin as a rake what's more important still is the issue of a double ration of smokes 10 cigars 20 cigarettes and two quids of chew per man now that is decent I have exchanged my chewing tobacco with Kat stinksy for his cigarettes which means I have 40 altogether that's enough for a day it is true we have no right to this windfall depression is not so generous we have only a miscalculation to think thank for it 14 days ago we had to go up and relieve the front line it was fairly quiet on our sector so the quartermaster who remained in the rear had requisitioned the usual quantity of rations and provided for the full company of 150 men but on the last day an astonishing number of English TVs have opened up on us with high explosive drumming ceaselessly on our position so that we suffered severely and came back only 80 strong last night we moved back and settled down to get a good night's sleep for once katzinski was right when he said it would not be such a bad War if only one could get a little more sleep in the line we have had Next To None and 14 days is a long time at one stretch it was noon before the first of us crawled out of our quarters half an hour later every man had messed in and we gathered in the Cook House which smelled greasy and nourishing at the head of the queue of course with the hungriest little Albert crop the clearest thinker Among Us and therefore only a lance corporal Mueller who still carries his school textbooks with him dreams of examinations and during a bombardment matters propositions in physics Lear who wears a full beard and has a preference for the girls from the officers brothels he swears that they are obliged by an army order to wear silk commit commies and to bathe before entertaining guests of the ranking Captain upwards as the fourth myself Paul Baumer and four are 19 years of age and all four joined up from the same class as volunteers for the war close behind us were our friends Jarred in the skinny locksmith of our age and the biggest Eater of the company he sits down to eat as thin as a grasshopper and gets up as big as a bug in the family way Hayes West this of the same age a Pete Digger who can easily hold a ration Loaf in his hand and say guess what I've got in my fist then deterring a peasant who thinks of nothing but his farmyard and his wife and finally the leader of our group shrewd cunning and hard bitten 40 years of age with a face of the soil blue eyes bent shoulders and a remarkable nose for dirty weather good food and soft jobs Our Gang formed at the head of the queue before the Cookhouse we were growing impatient for the cook paid no attention to us finally kazinski called to him say Heinrich open up the soup kitchen anyone can see the beans are done he shook his head she sleepily you must all be there first Chad and grinned we are all here and the sergeant cook still took no notice that many do for that may do for you he said but where are the others they won't be fed by you today they're either in the dressing station or pushing up daisies the cook was quite disconcerted as the facts dawned on him and he was staggered and I have cooked for 150 men Croc poked him in the ribs and for once we'll have enough come on begin suddenly a vision came over Chardon his sharp mousy features began to shine and his eyes grew small with cunning his jaws twitched and he whispered hoarsely man then you've got bread for 150 men two-way the sergeant cook nodded absent-minded him butwildered charred and seeds seized him by the tunic and sausage Ginger nodded again charlton's chaps quivered tobacco too yes everything Chad and beamed what a bean feast that's all for us each man gets weighed a bit yes practically two issues then Ginger stirred himself and said that won't do we got excited and began to crowd round why won't you why won't that do you old carrot command kazinsky 80 man can have what is meant for 150. we'll soon show you grad Mueller I don't care about the stew but I can only ration issue rations for 80 men persisted Ginger katsinski got angry you might be a generous for once you've been drawn food for 80 men you've drawn it for the second company good then let's have it then we are the second company we began to jostle the fellow no one felt kindly toward him for it was his fault that the food often came up to his line too late and cold under shell fire he wouldn't bring his kitchen up near enough so that our suit carriers had to go much farther than those of any other companies now bulk of the first company is a much better fellow he is as fat as a hamster in the winter but he trundles his pots when it comes to that right up to the very front line we were in just the right mood and there would certainly have been a dust up of our company Commander had not appeared he informed himself of the dispute and only remarked yes we did have heavy losses yesterday he glanced into the Dixie the beans looked good Ginger nodded cooked with the meat and fat Lieutenant looked at us and he knew what we were thinking and he knew many other things too because he came up to the company as a non-com and was promoted from the ranks he lifted the lid from the Dixie again and sniffed then passing on he said bring me a plateful serve out all the rations we can do with them Ginger looked sheepish as child and danced around him it doesn't cost you anything anyone would think the quartermaster store belonged to him and now get on with it you old blubber sticker and don't you miscount either you'd you'd be hanged spat out Ginger when things got get Beyond him he throws up the sponge altogether he just goes to pieces and as if to show that all things were equal to him is his own free he will he be issued in addition half pound of synthetic honey to each man today is wonderfully good the male has common almost every man has a few letters and papers we stroll over to the meadow behind the bullets crop has the round lid of a margarine tub under his arm on the right side of the meadow large common latrine has been built a roofed and durable construction but that is for the recruits who has yet not learned of how to make the most of what ever comes their way we want something better scattered about everywhere there are separate individual boxes for the same purpose there are square neat boxes with wooden sides all around and of unimpeachably satisfactory seats on the sides are hand grips enabling one to shift them about we move three together in a ring and sit down comfortably and it will be two hours before we get up again I will well remember how embarrassed we were as recruits in the barracks when you used to have to use the general latrine there were no doors and 20 men sat side by side as in a railway Carriage so that they could all be reviewed all at one glance for the soldiers must always be under supervision since then we've learned better to be shy about the trifling in modesties in time things here are far worse than that came easy to us here in the open air though the business is entirely a pleasure I no longer understand why we should always have shied these things before they are in fact just as natural as eating and drinking we might perhaps have paid no particular attention to them and they have not figured so large in our experience nor have they been such Novelties in our minds to the old hands they had been a mere matter of course the soldier is on a friendlier terms than the other men quarters of his vocabulary is derived from these regions and they give an intimate flavor to his expressions of his greatest joy as well as of his deepest indignation it is impossible to express oneself in any other way so clearly and pitily our families and teachers will be shocked when we go home but here it is the universal language enforced publicity has in our eyes restored the character of complete innocence to all these things more than that they are so much matter of course that their comfortable performance is fully as much enjoyed as the playing of a safe top running flush and not for anything was the world word latrine rumor invented these places are the regimental gossip shop in common rooms we feel ourselves for the time being better off than in any glacial white tiled convenience there it can only be hygienic here it is beautiful there are wonderfully Carefree hours over us as the blue sky on the horizon float the bright yellow sunlit observation balloons and the many little white clouds of the air anti-aircraft shells often they rise and a sheath as they follow after an Airman we are muffled Rumble of the front only is very distant Thunder bumblebees droning by quite drown it around us stretches the flowery Meadow the grasses sway their tall Spears and white butterflies flutter around and Float On the soft warm wind of the late summer we read letters and newspapers and smoke we take off our caps and lay them down beside us the wind plays with our hair it plays with our words and thoughts the three boxes stand in the midst of the glowing red field poppies we set the lid of the margarine tub on our knees so we have good table for a game of Scat crop has the cards with him in every missile overt we have a round of nap one could sit like this forever the notes of an accordion float across from the billets often we lay aside the cards and look about us one of us will say well boys or it was a near thing that time and for a moment we fall silent there is in each of us a feeling of constraint we are all sensible of it and it needs no words to communicate it it might easily have happened that we should not be sitting here on our boxes today it came damn near to that and so everything is new and brave red poppies and good food cigarettes and Summer Breeze crop asks anyone seen cameric lately he's up at St Joseph's I tell him Mueller explains that he has had a flesh wound in his thigh a good bloody we decide to go to see him this afternoon crop pulls out a letter Kendrick sends you all his best wishes we laugh Mueller throws his cigarette away and says I wish she was here kantric had been our school Master a Stern little man in a gray tail coat with a face like a shrew mouse he was about the same size as corporal and the terror of klosterberg it was very queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men they are so much more energetic and uncompromising than the big fellows I always take in good care to keep out of the sections with small company and commanders they are mostly confounded little marionettes during drill time counteract gave us long lectures until the whole of our class went under his shepherding to the district commandment and volunteered I can see him now as he used to glare at us through his the spectacles and say in a morning moving voice won't you join up comrades these teachers always carry their feelings ready in their waist coat pocket and trot them out by the hour but we didn't think of that then there was indeed one of us who hesitated and did not want to fall into line that was Joseph Bim a plump homely fellow but he did allow himself to be persuaded otherwise he would have been ostracized perhaps more of us thought as he did but no one could very well stand out because at the time even once parents were ready with the word coward no one had the vaguest idea of what we were in for the wisest were just the poor and the simple people they knew the war to be a misfortune whereas those who were better of it better off and should have been able to see more clearly what the consequences would be or beside themselves with joy said there was a result of the upbringing it made them stupid and what Kath said he had thought about strange to say Ben was one of the first to fall he got hit in the eye during an attack and we left him lying for dead we couldn't bring him with us because we had to come back hell to Skelter in the afternoon suddenly we heard him call and saw him crawling about to No Man's Land he had only been knocked unconscious because he could not see and he was mad with pain he felt failed to keep undercover and so he was shot down before anyone could go and fetchmen naturally we couldn't blame counteract for this where would the world be if one brought every man book there were thousands of cataracts of all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best in a way that cost them nothing and that was why they let us down so badly for us Lads of 18 they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world and maturity and the world of work of Duty of culture of progress to the future we often made fun of them and played jokes on them but in our hearts we trusted them the idea of authority which they represented was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more Humane wisdom but the first death we saw shattered this belief we had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs they surpassed us only by phrases in and in cleverness the first bombardment showed us our mistake and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke into pieces while they continue to write and talk we saw the wounded and dying while they taught the duty to one's country is the greatest thing but we already knew that the death throws are stronger but for all that we were no mutineers no deserters no cowards they were very free with all these Expressions we loved our country as much as they we went courageously into every action but also we distinguished the false from the true we had suddenly learned to see and we saw that there was nothing of their world left we were all at once terribly alone and alone we must see it through before going over to see Cameron we packed up his things you will need them on the way back in the dressing station there is great activity it reeks as ever of carbolic pus and sweat we are accustomed to the good deal of the in the billets but this makes us feel faint we ask for cameric and he lies in a large room and receives us with feeble expressions of joy and helpless agitation while he was unconscious someone had stolen his watch Mueller shakes his head I always told you that nobody should carry as gonna watch as that Mueller is rather crude and taxless otherwise he would hold his tongue for anybody can see that kameric would never come out of his place again whether he finds his watch or not will make no difference at the most one will only be able to send it to his people How it Go friends says crop kimrick's head sinks not so bad but I have such a damn pain in my foot we all look at his bed covering his leg lies under a wire basket the bed covering arches over it I kick Mueller on the shin and he's just about to tell Cameron what the orderlies told us the outside that kamrick has lost his foot the leg is amputated he looks ghastly yellow and one in his face there have already strained in lines that we know so well we've seen them now hundreds of times they are not so much lines as marks Under the Skin the life no longer pulses and is already pressed out of the boundaries of the body death is working through from within it is already command in the eyes here lies our comrade kemerick who a little while ago was roasting horse flesh with us and squatting in the Shell holes he it is still and yet it is he not he any longer his features have become uncertain and faint like a photographic plate from which two pictures have been taken even his voice sounds like ashes I think of the time when we went away his mother a good plump matron brought him to the station she wept continually her face was bloated and swollen kamrick felt embarrassed for she was the least composed of all she simply dissolved into fat and water and when she caught sight of me and took my arm again and again and implored me to look after friends out there indeed he did have a face like a child and such frail bones that after four weeks Pat caring he was already had flat feet but how can a man look after anyone in the field now you'll be going home says crop you should have had to at least wait three or four months for your leave cameric nods I cannot bear to look at his hands they're like Wax under the nails the dirt of the trenches trenches it shows through blue blacks like poison it strikes me that these nails will continue to grow Lee in fantastic Cellar plants long after camera breathes no more I see the picture before me they twist themselves into corkscrews and grow and grow and with them the hair on the decaying skull just like grass and good soil just like grass how can it be possible Mueller leaned over we've brought you things friends kamrick size signs with his hands put them under the bed Mueller does so camera starts on again about the watch how can one calm him without making him suspicious Mueller reappears with a pair of airmen's boots they are fine English boots of soft yellow leather which reach to the knees and lace up all the way they are things to be coveted Mueller is delighted at the sight of them he matches their souls against his own clumsy boots and says will you be taking them with you friends we all three have the same thought even if he should get better he would be able to only use one they're of no use to him but as things are now it is a Pity that they should stay here the orderlies will of course grab them as soon as he is dead want to leave them with us Mueller repeats kamrick doesn't want to there is most prized possessions well we could exchange says Mueller again out here one can make some use of them still kameric is not to be moved I tread on Mueller's foot reluctantly he puts the fine boots back again under the bed we talk a little more and then take our leave Cheerio friends I promise him to come back in the morning Mueller talks of doing so too he's thinking of the lace-up boots and means to be on the spot Cameron groans he is feverish and we and get hold of an orderly outside and ask him to give kamrick a dose of morphia he refuses if we were to give morphia to everyone we would have to have tubs full you only attend to officers properly this is crop viciously I hastily intervene and give him a cigarette he takes it are you usually allowed to give it then I ask him he's annoyed if you don't think so then why do you ask I press a few more cigarettes into his hand do us the favor well all right he says crop goes in with him he doesn't trust him and wants to see we wait outside Mueller returns to the subject of the boots it would fit me perfectly in those boots I'll get blister after and these boots I get blister after blister you think he will last till tomorrow after drill if he passes out in the night we know where the boots crop returns do you think he asks done for said Mueller emphatically we go back to the Huts I think of the letter that I must write tomorrow to Cameron's mother I am freezing I could do a talk I could do with a taut of rum Mueller pulls up some grass and chews it and suddenly little Croc throws a cigarette away stamps on it savagely looking around him with a broken and distracted face and stammers damned to the damned we walk on for a long time crop has calmed himself and we understand he saw red out there every man gets like that sometimes what is counteract written you Mueller Mueller asks him he laughs we are the iron youth we all three smile bitterly crop rails he's glad I can that he can speak yes that's the way they think those hundred thousand cantorex Iron youth youth we are none of us but more than 20 years old but young youth that is so long ago we are old folk