Read Online The Train Was On Time by Heinrich Böll - Free Book Online Page A

half years, not one tear since I walked back down that hill into Amiens and was too lazy to walk those extra three minutes as far as the field where I had been wounded.
    The second train had left too, the station was empty now. Funny, thought Andreas, even if I wanted to I couldn’t go back now. I could never leave these two fellows alone. Besides, I don’t want to go back, I never want to go back.…
    The station with all its various tracks was deserted now. A heat haze danced between the rails, and somewhere back there by the entrance a group of Poles were working, shoveling ballast onto the tracks, and coming along the platform was an odd figure wearing the pants of the unshaven soldier. From way off you could see it was no longer the bearded, fierce, desperate fellow who had been cooped up in the train and drinking to drown his sorrows. This was a different person, only the pants were still those of the unshaven soldier. His face was all smooth and pink, his cap at a slight angle, and in his eyes, as he came closer, could be seen something of the real sergeant, a mixture of indifference, mockery, cynicism, and militarism. Those eyes seemed to have done with dreaming, the unshaven soldier was now shaved and washed, his hair was combed, hishands were clean, and it was just as well to know that his name was Willi, for it was impossible to think of him any more as the unshaven soldier, you had to think of him as Willi. The blond fellow was still lying on his blanket, his face on his folded arms, and from his heavy breathing you couldn’t tell whether he was sleeping, groaning, or crying.
    “Is he asleep?” Willi asked.
    “Yes.” Willi unpacked the rations and arranged everything neatly in two piles. “Three days’ supply,” he said. For each man there was a whole loaf of bread and a large sausage, its wrapping paper wet with the moisture oozing from it. For each man there was slightly less than half a pound of butter, eighteen cigarettes, and three rolls of fruit drops.
    “Nothing for you?” Andreas asked.
    Willi looked at him in surprise, almost offended. “But I’ve still got my ration cards for sixteen days!” Strange to think that all that hadn’t been a dream, all those things Willi had talked about during the night. It had been the truth, it had been the same person as this man facing him now, smoothly shaven, the quiet eyes holding no more than a modicum of pain; the same person who was now standing in the shade of the fir tree and, very carefully, so as not to spoil the creases, pulling on the pants of his black Panzer uniform. Brand-new pants that suited him down to the ground. He now looked every inch a sergeant.
    “There’s some beer here too,” said Willi. He unpacked three bottles of beer, and they set up Willi’s carton between them as a table and began to eat. The blond fellow did not stir, he lay there on his face as many a dead man lies on the battlefield. Willi had some Polish bacon, white bread, and onions. The beer was excellent, it was even cool.
    “These Polish barbers,” said Willi, “they’re tremendous. For six marks, everything included, they make a new man of you, they even shampoo your hair! Just tremendous, and canthey ever cut hair!” He took off his peaked cap and pointed to the well-contoured back of his head. “That’s what I call a haircut.” Andreas was still looking at him in amazement. In Willi’s eyes there was now something sentimental, some sergeant-like sentimentality. It was very pleasant eating like this as if at a proper table, well away from those army huts.
    “You fellows,” said Willi, chewing and clearly enjoying his beer, “you fellows should go and have a wash, or get yourselves washed, makes you feel like a new man. You get rid of everything, all that dirt. And then the shave! You could use one.” He glanced at Andreas’ chin. “You could certainly use one. I tell you, it’s tremendous, you don’t feel tired any more, you … you—” he