"That's a bad business!—Then we'll have to pull in our belts and wait till the rations come up in the morning."
But I see Kat has put on his cap.
"Where to, Kat?" I ask.
"Just to explore the place a bit."
He strolls off.
The artilleryman grins scornfully.
"Go ahead and explore.
But don't strain yourself in carrying what you find."
Disappointed we lie down and consider whether we couldn't have a go at the iron rations.
But it's too risky; so we try to get a wink of sleep.
Kropp divides a cigarette and hands me half.
Tjaden gives an account of his national dish— broad-beans and bacon.
He despises it when not flavoured with bog-myrtle, and, "for God's sake, let it all be cooked together, not the potatoes, the beans, and the bacon separately."
Someone growls that he will pound Tjaden into bog-myrtle if he doesn't shut up. Then all becomes quiet in the big room—only the candles flickering from the necks of a couple of bottles and the artilleryman spitting every now and then.
We are just dozing off when the door opens and Kat appears.
I think I must be dreaming; he has two loaves of bread under his arm and a bloodstained sandbag full of horse-flesh in his hand.
The artilleryman's pipe drops from his mouth.
He feels the bread.
"Real bread, by God, and still hot too?"
Kat gives no explanation.
He has the bread, the rest doesn't matter.
I’m sure that if he were planted down in the middle of the desert, in half an hour he would have gathered together a supper of roast meat, dates, and wine.
"Cut some wood," he says curtly to Haie.
Then he hauls out a frying pan from under his coat, and a handful of salt as well as a lump of fat from his pocket. He has thought of everything.
Haie makes a fire on the floor.
It lights up the empty room of the factory.
We climb out of bed.
The artilleryman hesitates.
He wonders whether to praise Kat and so perhaps gam a little for himself.
But Katczinsky doesn't even see him, he might as well be thin air.
He goes off cursing.
Kat knows the way to roast horse-flesh so that it's tender.
It shouldn't be put straight into the pan, that makes it tough.
It should be boiled first in a little water.
With our knives we squat round in a circle and fill our bellies.
That is Kat.
If for one hour in a year something eatable were to be had in some one place only, within that hour, as if moved by a vision, he would put on his cap, go out and walk directly there, as though following a compass, and find it.
He finds everything—if it is cold, a small stove and wood, hay and straw, a table and chairs— but above all food.
It is uncanny; one would think he conjured it out of the air.
His masterpiece was four boxes of lobsters.
Admittedly we would rather have had a good beef steak.
We have settled ourselves on the sunny side of the hut.
There is a smell of tar, of summer, and of sweaty feet.
Kat sits beside me. He likes to talk.
Today we have done an hour's saluting drill because Tjaden failed to salute a major smartly enough.
Kat can't get it out of his head.
"You take it from me, we are losing the war because we can salute too well," he says.
Kropp stalks up, with his breeches rolled up and his feet bare.
He lays out his washed socks to dry on the grass.
Kat turns his eyes to heaven, lets off a mighty fart, and says meditatively: