The Cross of Iron Read Online Free PDF Page A

nailed boots. But it was still so dark that they could not see ten paces ahead. They must have been about fifty yards from the highway when Steiner ordered a halt. He called to Hollerbach and Schnurrbart to join him. ‘You fellows come with me. The rest will wait here.’ Bent low, they disappeared into the darkness.
    The men squatted on the wet ground, listening to the noises from the highway. They were all wide awake now. Krüger looked at his watch. It was already four. The rain had stopped. I wish it would pour now, Krüger thought. He turned to Dietz beside him and said: ‘We’ll never get across there.’
    Dietz shrugged. He looked at Kern, who had buried his face in his hands and was sitting in a posture of resentment. ‘He shouldn’t have hit him,’ Dietz whispered.
    Krüger spat, ‘Ah, shit!’
    ‘What do you mean, shit?’ Dietz protested. ‘He shouldn’t have done it.’ He began to stammer indignantly. ‘Where’d we be if every corporal could slap us in the face?’
    Krüger rubbed his sleeve over his wet face. ‘What are you making such a fuss for?’ he grumbled. ‘Forget it, for God’s sake, there are more important things to think about at the moment.’
    Intimidated, Dietz fell silent. He sat regarding his dirty hands unhappily. It just wasn’t right, he thought. A reprimand—all right, punishment exercises—that was all right, too. But smashing a lighted cigarette into a man’s face—that was going too far, much too far. The more he thought about it, the more indignant he became. Steiner had always been decent to him personally, but that, too, might change, some day. It was a matter of principle. What had just happened to Kern might easily happen to any of them tomorrow. Although, of course, he himself would hardly be caught making a mistake like that. After all, he was a soldier, a front -liner. At this point in his train of thought, Dietz saw the thing clearly. ‘If a thing’s wrong on the lowest level, it’s wrong all through,’ he said. ‘That’s why it’s a serious matter. Do you think -’ he hesitated. ‘Don’t you think that if they started hitting each other in the face at the Führer’s headquarters, we wouldn’t be feeling the effects of it quick enough. I tell you, we’ve got to have order. Order and discipline from the bottom to the top, but also from the bottom to the top.’ He spoke these last words with the utmost conviction.
    Krüger grinned. ‘It’s the same thing.’
    ‘What is?’
    ‘Well, you said we’ve got to have order from the bottom to the top, but also from the bottom to the top. It’s the same thing.’
    It took a moment for Dietz to grasp this. ‘That was just a slip of the tongue,’ he said irritably. ‘You know what I meant: from the bottom to the top and from the top to the bottom. In the Führer’s headquarters -’
    ‘Don’t strain your guts, my boy,’ Krüger said. ‘In the Führer’s headquarters they gargle with champagne. If we were up there we’d be gargling piss.’ He wiped his hand over his mouth. ‘Yes, we’d feel the effects if they started hitting one another.’ The thought amused him and he chuckled. ‘Maybe they will, at that; but not until all of us right here are in the soup. You know what the issue is at the moment?’ He brought his face close to Dietz’s. ‘The issue is that we have to get out of here. And you know why? I’ll tell you.’ He poked his finger into Dietz’s chest; affronted, Dietz moved back. ‘I’ll tell you,’ he repeated. ‘We have to get out so that we’ll be on time to get into the next mess. Out of one mess into the next. That’s been going on for three years and it’ll go on until we get into one mess good and deep and don’t come out of it.’ He came to an end of words, having worked himself into a rage.
    Dietz gazed at him dumbfounded. Then he turned to Dorn, who had been genially listening to the conversation. ‘What do you say to that, Professor?’
    Dorn forced a