Last week’s University Challenge asked which literary work opens with these lines: “We are at rest five miles behind the front. Yesterday we were relieved, and now our bellies are full of bully beef and beans”. Like a shot, I metaphorically spat out my cornflakes in a garbled attempt to get my answer out before the brainiacs on the quiz show – “err, err, I know this…orl-quiet-onza-western-front…”! I had recognised the line due to having only just read the book, giving me one of those serendipitously rare advantages in TV’s toughest quiz.
All Quiet on the Western Front (in the original German, Im Westen nichts Neues, literally “In the West, nothing new”) is a semi-autobiographical novel by Erich Maria Remarque, drawn from his experiences as a German veteran of World War I. The book is a first-person, present-tense portrayal of life in the German trenches in the Great War, a story of extreme physical and mental trauma, punctuated by boredom and ennui. The narrator, Paul, has come to the trenches straight from school – reminding us of the young age of these lads – and he is accompanied by several classmates, all spurred on by their teacher to enlist and none of whom will return home.
It is rightly considered to be one of the greatest war novels of all time, and it comes as no surprise to learn that it was one of the books banned and burned by Nazi Germany in the 1930s (who weren’t keen on the subversive “war is hell and really isn’t worth it” tone of the book). It has been translated to the big screen on three occasions, most recently, – and successfully – by Edward Berger’s 2022 adaptation, which won four Academy Awards.
When the novel isn’t focused on the nightmare of trench warfare, we learn of life during the “quiet” times in between action on the front line, marked in random order by boredom, black humour, camaraderie, and obsession with finding food to supplement their meagre rations. The excerpt I have chosen below describes one such illicit mission by Paul and his mate Kat to steal a goose from regimental headquarters. This theme of hard-won sustenance, which probably only those who have experienced genuine hunger can truly appreciate, is exquisitely described. It has an air of comedy caper about it, but ends with the sublime satisfaction of satiety, a rare moment of calm before the inevitable return to reality.
Kat hoists me up. I rest my foot in his hands and climb over the wall.
Kat keeps watch below.
I wait a few moments to accustom my eyes to the darkness. Then I recognise the shed. Softly I steal across, lift the peg, pull it out and open the door.
I distinguish two white patches. Two geese, that’s bad: if I grab one the other will cackle. Well, both of them–if I’m quick, it can be done.
I make a jump. I catch hold of one and the next instant the second. Like a madman I bash their heads against the wall to stun them. But I haven’t quite enough weight. The beasts cackle and strike out with their feet and wings. I fight desperately, but Lord! what a kick a goose has! They struggle and I stagger about. In the dark these white patches are terrifying. My arms have grown wings and I’m almost afraid of going up into the sky, as though I held a couple of captive balloons in my fists.
Then the row begins; one of them gets his breath and goes off like an alarm clock. Before I can do anything, something comes in from outside; I feel a blow, lie outstretched on the floor, and hear awful growls. A dog. I steal a glance to the side, he makes a snap at my throat. I lie still and tuck my chin into my collar.
It’s a bulldog. After an eternity he withdraws his head and sits down beside me. But if I make the least movement he growls. I consider. The only thing to do is to get hold of my small revolver, and that too before anyone arrives. Inch by inch I move my hand toward it.
I have the feeling that it lasts an hour. The slightest movement and then an awful growl; I lie still, then try again. When at last I have the revolver my hand starts to tremble. I press it against the ground and say over to myself: Jerk the revolver up, fire before he has a chance to grab, and then jump up.
Slowly I take a deep breath and become calmer. Then I hold my breath, whip up the revolver, it cracks, the dog leaps howling to one side, I make for the door of the shed and fall head over heels over one of the scuttering geese.
At full speed I seize it again, and with a swing toss it over the wall and clamber up. No sooner am I on top than the dog is up again as lively as ever and springs at me. Quickly I let myself drop. Ten paces away stands Kat with the goose under his arm. As soon as he sees me we run.
At last we can take a breather. The goose is dead, Kat saw to that in a moment. We intend to roast it at once so that nobody will be any wiser. I fetch a dixie and wood from the hut and we crawl into a small deserted lean-to which we use for such purposes. The single window space is heavily curtained. There is a sort of hearth, an iron plate set on some bricks. We kindle a fire.
Kat plucks and cleans the goose. We put the feathers carefully to one side. We intend to make two cushions out of them with the inscription: “Sleep soft under shell-fire.” The sound of the gunfire from the front penetrates into our refuge. The glow of the fire lights up our faces, shadows dance on the wall. Sometimes a heavy crash and the lean-to shivers. Aeroplane bombs. Once we hear a stifled cry. A hut must have been hit.
Aeroplanes drone; the tack-tack of machine guns breaks out. But no light that could be observed shows from us. We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don’t talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have.
We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common–now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, are so intimate that we do not even speak.
It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat. So we take turns. One bastes it while the other lies down and sleeps. A grand smell gradually fills the hut.
Then he says: “It’s done.”
“Yes, Kat.”
I stir myself. In the middle of the room shines the brown goose. We take out our collapsible forks and our pocket-knives and each cuts off a leg. With it we have army bread dipped in gravy. We eat slowly and with gusto.
“How does it taste, Kat?”
“Good! And yours?”
“Good, Kat.”
We are brothers and press on one another the choicest pieces. Afterwards I smoke a cigarette and Kat a cigar. There is still a lot left.
