We have eaten too much fat.
Fresh baby pig is very griping to the bowels.
There is an everlasting coming and going in the dug-out.
Two, three men with their pants down are always sitting about outside and cursing.
I have been out nine times myself.
About four o'clock in the morning we reach a record: all eleven men, guards and visitors, are squatting outside.
Burning houses stand out like torches against the night.
Shells lumber across and crash down.
Munition columns tear along the street.
On one side the supply dump has been ripped open.
In spite of all the flying fragments the drivers of the munition columns pour in like a swarm of bees and pounce on the bread.
We let them have their own way.
If we said anything it would only mean a good hiding for us.
So we go differently about it.
We explain that we are the guard and so know our way about, we get hold of the tinned stuff and exchange it for things we are short of.
What does it matter anyhow—in a while it will all be blown to pieces.
For ourselves we take some chocolate from the depot and eat it in slabs.
Kat says it is good for loose bowels.
Almost a fortnight passes thus in eating, drinking and roaming about.
No one disturbs us.
The village gradually vanishes under the shells and we lead a charmed life.
So long as any part of the supply dump still stands we don't worry, we desire nothing better than to stay here till the end of the war.
Tjaden has become so fastidious that he only half smokes his cigars.
With his nose in the air he explains to us that he was brought up that way.
And Kat is most cheerful. In the morning his first call is:
"Emil, bring in the caviare and coffee."
We put on extraordinary airs, every man treats the other as his valet, bounces him and gives him orders.
"There is something itching under my foot; Kropp my man, catch that louse at once," says Leer, poking out his leg at him like a ballet girl, and Albert drags him up the stairs by the foot.
"Tjaden!"—"What?"—"Stand at ease, Tjaden; and what's more, don't say 'What,' say
'Yes, Sir,' —now: Tjaden!"
Tjaden retorts in the well-known phrase from Goethe's
"Gotz von Berlichingen," with which he is always free.
After eight more days we receive orders to go back.
The palmy days are over.
Two big motor lorries take us away.
They are stacked high with planks.
Nevertheless, Albert and I erect on top our four-poster bed complete with blue silk canopy, mattress, and two lace coverlets.
And behind it at the head is stowed a bag full of choicest edibles.
We often dip into it, and the tough ham sausages, the tins of liver sausages, the conserves, the boxes of cigarettes rejoice our hearts.
Each man has a bag to himself.
Kropp and I have rescued two big red armchairs as well.
They stand inside the bed, and we sprawl back in them as in a theatre box.
Above us swells the silken cover like a baldaquin.
Each man has a long cigar in his mouth.
And thus from aloft we survey the scene.
Between us stands a parrot cage that we found for the cat.
She is coming with us, and lies in the cage before her saucer of meat, and purrs.
Slowly the lorries roll down the road.
We sing.
Behind us shells are sending up fountains from the now utterly abandoned village.