Officer Factory. Hans Hellmut Kirst

his bed, breathing regularly. It was almost as if he were ceremonially laid out in his coffin, for there was no situation in life in which Modersohn's attitude was not exemplary.

      Wirrmann, the Judge-Advocate, was also asleep. He lay there breathing heavily as if packed between documents and covered with the dust of many court-martials. Kater, commander of the headquarters company, had fallen into a similar sort of heavy sleep. Three bottles of red wine kept all his worries at bay.

      Elfrida Rademacher still lay beside Lieutenant Krafft. And their expressions made it clear that they hoped the night would never end.

      Captain Ratshelm smiled in his sleep. He saw himself in his dream standing beside a pure, vigorous young wife in a meadow full of flowers, surrounded by a troop of adorable healthy children. And all of them both spouse and progeny were cadets: cadets of his training school, on his course, cadets of his company—his very own cadets!

      But none of the cadets were dreaming about Captain Ratshelm, not even Hochbauer. He hardly ever dreamt. If he occasionally gave in to daydreams while awake, these were shot with reds and golds and browns, and they revolved round visions of titanic glory, of mighty achievement and renown. Every imaginable sacrifice for the great goal! In times of desperation, his beloved Führer had wielded a house-painter's brush; he too was ready for a similar sacrifice, if there was no alternative.

      Cadets Mösler, Rednitz and Weber had gone to sleep in a great state of dissatisfaction. They had been deeply disappointed to find the terrain they coveted already occupied. But they hadn't given up hope. After all, the course had only just begun—a mere twenty-one days ago. Eight full weeks still lay ahead of them, and they were determined to make the best possible use of them.

      Captain Feders still couldn't get to sleep. He stared at his watch: the hands crawled round with appalling slowness. He closed his eyes. And he felt how lust reached out with quivering tentacles into nothingness. And he saw only a hopeless void. All was dead. Life was a mere transition between death and death. All was rottenness.

      The sentry on the gate yawned.

      6. A SECTION OFFICER REQUIRED

      “I was told to report to the General at ten,” said Lieutenant Krafft to the girl who looked up to see what he wanted.

      “Then I must ask you to wait until that time, Lieutenant.”

      Krafft looked pointedly at his watch. It was five minutes to ten. He drew attention to the fact and even tapped his wristwatch.

      “Quite correct,” said the girl with friendly aloofness. “You’re five minutes early.”

      The name of the girl he was speaking to was Sybille Bachner. She worked in the General's ante-room under Bieringer, the A.D.C., who however wasn't there just then, being busy probably checking the bread ration for his commanding officer. Anyhow, Sybille Bachner seemed determined to apply the General's principles, and simply left Krafft standing there.

      Krafft promptly sat down in the A.D.C.'s chair. He crossed his legs and eyed Sybille Bachner with interest.

      After a while he said: “So you're the General's principal assistant, so to speak. You'll notice I choose my words with care.”

      “I’m employed here as secretary, Lieutenant, and that's the full extent of my duties or obligations. Anything else you'd like to know?”

      There was a certain tolerance about Sybille Bachner's smile. She seemed quite used to being eyed like this and having to submit to questions.

      “How long have you been in this outfit actually, Fräulein Bachner?” inquired Krafft.

      “Longer than the General,” said Sybille, giving him a cool, impersonal smile. “Isn’t that what you want to know, Lieutenant? The General neither brought me with him nor applied for me to be posted here. He simply took me over.”

      “In every respect?”

      “My duties weren't limited in any way.”

      Sybille Bachner said this quite ingenuously, straightening a stack of paper on the little typing table beside her as she did so. She seemed anxious to get on with her work, which gave Krafft plenty of opportunity to observe her more closely.

      This girl Sybille Bachner occupied a rather special position among the women in the barracks, for she worked in a proximity to the commanding officer that made discretion imperative. A room of her own was intended to help her preserve this quality but unlike most of the other women's rooms this did not lie in a separate corridor of the headquarters building but in the so-called guest house. Not so far away from where the General himself lived.

      This prompted a good deal of speculation. With anyone else the inference would have been obvious. But with Modersohn things were different. Few people found themselves able to imagine that a general like him could be beset by ordinary human weaknesses, and those that did were influenced primarily by Sybille Bachner's looks, which seemed to make absolutely any sort of weakness understandable. For she was a dark, Latin type of beauty of about twenty-five, and her skin was soft and the color of apricots and her large eyes were black as night. Silky hair framed her face like a shawl, a face dominated by slightly prominent cheek-bones and a soft, sensual mouth.

      Krafft stopped eyeing the Bachner girl as soon as it became clear that she was interested only in work. Secretaries in important posts in ante-rooms were usually only interested in work, and he hadn't noticed a single gesture of hers, or heard one word, which suggested that she wished to be treated as someone who had the commanding officer's ear. She was neither ostentatiously formal nor absurdly refined. And in any case for him she represented simply a brief encounter soon to be forgotten, for he felt sure that before many minutes were up, his short stay at the training school would be over.

      “It’s ten o'clock, Lieutenant Krafft,” said Sybille Bachner pleasantly. “Go in, please.”

      “Just like that?” asked Krafft in astonishment. For the Bachner girl had neither left the room nor made a telephone call. Neither had any little bell been rung, nor message been given to her. She had simply looked at the clock.

      “It’s ten o'clock,” said Sybille Bachner, and her smile broadened slightly. “The General thinks punctuality very important and keeps to his daily schedule exactly. Go in please, Lieutenant, don't bother to knock.”

      Sybille Bachner was left alone in the General's ante-room, looking at the walls, which were hung with nothing but training schedules. Documents, files, regulations lay all over the place—on the A.D.C.'s table, on her own table, on shelves, on the window-sills and even on the floor. She was literally surrounded by work. She pulled open one of the drawers. In it lay a mirror in which she looked at herself thoughtfully. She felt depressed by what she saw. She was gradually growing old, wasting her life here among papers and the rattle of typewriter keys, stuck in one of the culs-de-sac of the war.

      She heard footsteps approaching and hurriedly closed her drawer again: The A.D.C. came in. Her looking-glass face vanished and she shifted a bundle of papers in front of her.

      “Well,” asked Lieutenant Bieringer, the A.D.C., “is this fellow Krafft with the General?”

      Sybille Bachner nodded. “He was only five minutes early,” she said, “and didn't seem particularly overawed. On the contrary, he was even rather fresh.”

      This was really a compliment. Most people seemed to regard the ante-room as the antechamber to hell, and those who gathered here were either anxious and nervous or absurdly stiff. They usually arrived at least ten minutes early in order to make sure of being punctual. Krafft, then, at least was not one of this servile minority.

      “Fresh, did you say, Fräulein Bachner? Do you like him?”

      “I found the man extremely sure of himself.”

      “Not