Research paper

WE ARE AT REST five miles behind the front. Yesterday we were relieved,
and now our bellies are full of beef and haricot beans. We are
satisfied and at peace. Each man has another mess-tin full for the
evening; and, what is more, there is a double ration of sausage and
bread. That puts a man in fine trim. We have not had such luck as
this for a long time. The cook with his carroty head is begging us to
eat; he beckons with his ladle to every one that passes, and spoons
him out a great dollop. He does not see how he can empty his stewpot in time for coffee. Tjaden and Müller have produced two
washbasins and had them filled up to the brim as a reserve. In Tjaden
this is voracity, in Müller it is foresight. Where Tjaden puts it all is a
mystery, for he is and always will be as thin as a rake.
What’s more important still is the issue of a double ration of
smokes. Ten cigars, twenty cigarettes, and two quids of chew per
man; now that is decent. I have exchanged my chewing tobacco with
Katczinsky for his cigarettes, which means I have forty altogether.
That’s enough for a day.
It is true we have no right to this windfall. The Prussian is not so
generous. We have only a miscalculation to thank for it.
Fourteen days ago we had to go up and relieve the front line. It was
fairly quiet on our sector, so the quartermaster who remained in the
rear had requisitioned the usual quantity of rations and provided for
the full company of one hundred and fifty men. But on the last day an
astonishing number of English heavies opened up on us with highexplosive, drumming ceaselessly on our position, so that we suffered
severely and came back only eighty strong.
Last night we moved back and settled down to get a good sleep for
once: Katczinsky is right when he says it would not be such a bad war
if only one could get a little more sleep. In the line we have had next
to none, and fourteen days is a long time at one stretch.
It was noon before the first of us crawled out of our quarters. Half
an hour later every man had his mess-tin and we gathered at the
cook-house, which smelt greasy and nourishing. At the head of the
queue of course were the hungriest—little Albert Kropp, the clearest
thinker among us and therefore only a lance-corporal; Müller, who
still carries his school textbooks with him, dreams of examinations,
and during a bombardment mutters propositions in physics; Leer, who
wears a full beard and has a preference for the girls from officers’
brothels. He swears that they are obliged by an army order to wear
silk chemises and to bathe before entertaining guests of the rank of
captain and upwards. And as the fourth, myself, Paul Bäumer. All
four are nineteen years of age, and all four joined up from the same
class as volunteers for the war.
Close behind us were our friends: Tjaden, a skinny locksmith of our
own age, the biggest eater of the company. He sits down to eat as thin
as a grasshopper and gets up as big as a bug in the family way; Haie
Westhus, of the same age, a peat-digger, who can easily hold a rationloaf in his hand and say: Guess what I’ve got in my fist; then Detering,
a peasant, who thinks of nothing but his farm-yard and his wife; and
finally Stanislaus Katczinsky, the leader of our group, shrewd,
cunning, and hard-bitten, forty years of age, with a face of the soil,
blue eyes, bent shoulders, and a remarkable nose for dirty weather,
good food, and soft jobs.
Our gang formed the head of the queue before the cookhouse. We
were growing impatient, for the cook paid no attention to us
Finally Katczinsky called to him: “Say, Heinrich, open up the soupkitchen. Anyone can see the beans are done.”
He shook his head sleepily: “You must all be there first.” Tjaden
grinned: “We are all here.”
The sergeant-cook still took no notice. “That may do for you,” he
said. “But where are the others?”