Officer Factory. Hans Hellmut Kirst

short of irresponsible. The instinct for self-preservation alone demanded that such outsiders should receive no support.

      “I’m waiting,” said Hochbauer, looking at Rednitz as if he were some sort of louse.

      “As far as I'm concerned,” said Rednitz, “you can wait there till the cows come home.”

      “I’ll give you five seconds,” said Cadet Hochbauer. “After that my patience will be exhausted.”

      “Be reasonable, Rednitz I” implored Kramer. “After all we're all comrades here, all in the same boat. Apologize and it'll all be forgotten.”

      “Out of my way, Kramer!” cried Hochbauer firmly. “One has to talk plain German with people like this!”

      Kramer still wanted to act the peacemaker, but Hochbauer pushed his way forward, followed by his bodyguard Amfortas and Andreas. Then everyone stopped where they were and listened.

      “Look out! He's coming!” cried a hoarse, excited voice.

      This was Cadet Böhmke; a poetically inclined individual who in consequence found himself allotted every sort of dreary special duty. This time he had been posted as look-out.

      “Look out!” he repeated.

      “Attention!” cried Kramer with relief. “To your places, men!”

      Captain Ratshelm walked into the classroom followed by Lieutenant Krafft. Cadet Kramer reported: “Section H for Heinrich—forty men all present and correct, sir.”

      “Thank you,” said Ratshelm. “At ease please!” “Stand at ease!” cried Kramer.

      The cadets pushed their left feet forward and sideways and waited. Each knew perfectly well that the order Captain Ratshelm had just issued was an imperfect one. But he could afford to do that sort of thing: he wasn't on the course.

      He corrected himself: “You may sit down.”

      “Be seated!” cried Kramer.

      The cadets sat down very correctly, with their hands on the desk in front of them in the prescribed manner for the presence of officers. They now began to cast a wary eye on Lieutenant Krafft, without, however, for one moment forgetting to give the impression that their whole attention was riveted on Captain Ratshelm, the senior officer present.

      Captain Ratshelm now addressed them with gusto. “Gentlemen, I have the honor to introduce to you your new section officer, Lieutenant Krafft. I know you'll give him your full respect and confidence.”

      Ratshelm looked about him with a challenging air of optimism, concluding with the words: “Lieutenant Krafft, I hereby hand over to you your section and wish you every success.”

      The cadets watched the ceremony with mixed feelings, noting the exchange of handshakes between the two officers, the radiant look on Ratshelm's face and the tough smile on Krafft's. Then Ratshelm strutted from the room, leaving H Section alone with its new section officer.

      The cadets couldn't make much of him at first. Outwardly he bore a certain resemblance to a bull. His face wore a serious expression, and his glance seemed to sweep over them indifferently. He seemed to have no particular quality that one could pick on, which rather increased their uneasiness. They had no idea yet who it was they had to deal with. And yet everything seemed possible, including of course the worst.

      Lieutenant Krafft saw forty faces staring up at him, forty vague, colorless, identical faces in which he found it quite impossible to make out the details. Somewhere in the back row he thought he discovered a pair of friendly eyes for a moment, but couldn't find them again when he looked for them. Instead he saw passive indifference, watchful reserve, and cautious mistrust.

      “Right, gentlemen,” said the Lieutenant. “We must get to know each other. I am your new section officer, Lieutenant Krafft, born in 1916, at Stettin, to be precise, where my father was an official of the post office. I worked on a large agricultural estate as farm foreman and as accountant in the estate office, and was then called up in the Wehrmacht. And that's about all. Now it's your turn. Let's begin with the section senior.”

      This increased the cadets' misgivings considerably. They began to feel they were being victimized, for they had expected their section officer to start straight in on the lesson, in which case the Lieutenant would have had to hold the floor and they would have been able to take their time sizing him up. Instead of which, here was this Lieutenant Krafft demanding from them solo performances which could only have one object, namely to bring each one of them in turn under scrutiny. And what, after that, would they know of their new section officer? Nothing. That he wouldn't have gathered anything very much about them either didn't seem to occur to them.

      Meanwhile the section senior had risen to his feet and in his hoarse, slightly rasping voice, obviously accustomed to giving orders, announced curtly: “Kramer, Otto, cadet. Born 1920 in Nuremberg. Father, fitter in a photographic works. Regular enlistment. Corporal.”

       “Any further interests, Kramer? Particular aptitudes? Hobbies?”

      “None,” declared Kramer honestly, and sat down, feeling rather pleased with himself. He was a simple soldier and nothing more, and it seemed to him important to have made that clear. He was sure he'd made a good job of things. He always was, until someone of higher rank pointed out the contrary. But this happened rarely enough.

      Krafft's glance switched from the boorish face of Cadet Kramer to that of the man beside him. He saw a youth whose clear-cut winning features had a certain nobility about them, and he said encouragingly: “Right, then, next please.”

      Cadet Hochbauer rose to his full imposing height and said: “Cadet Hochbauer, Lieutenant. Christian name: Heinz. Born 1923 in Rosenheim. My father is in charge of the political training school at Pronthausen, holder of the Pour le Write. After matriculating I volunteered for the front. Special interests: history and philosophy.”

      Hochbauer said this all very much as a matter of course, without attaching any particular importance to it almost in an offhand way, in fact. But he watched Lieutenant Krafft carefully to see if his words had made any impression, and seemed to detect that they had. The Lieutenant's eyes rested thoughtfully for a while on Cadet Hochbauer.

      “Next please,” said Krafft.

      “Cadet Weber, Egon, born in 1922. My father was a master baker in Werdau which is where I was born, but my father is no longer alive, he had a heart attack at work in 1933 just after being nominated master tradesman of the district—he's been a Party member from 1927 or '26. I learnt bakery too—we've got a number of different branches—and my hobby is motor racing.”

      Figures, names, dates, particulars of places and professions, clues, explanations, statements of fact—all these political, human, military details, formed a confused buzzing sound in the room, which seemed completely to bemuse Krafft. By the sixth place-name he had already forgotten the first. By the ninth surname he could no longer remember the third or fourth. He stared at the desert of faces in front of him—bony, flat, round, long, and podgy. He listened to one voice after another—honest, rough, sharp, gentle, rasping voices—and they all merged into this one indeterminate buzz.

      Krafft noted the amount of wood there was in the room, taking in the paneled wall, the beams of the ceiling and the floor-board—wood everywhere, worn, scratched, battered, from yellowish-brown to brownish-black. The smell of pinewood, turpentine and dirty water was all about him.

      Krafft realized that this method of his was neither bringing him any closer to his section nor enabling him to gain any particularly penetrating insight into them. The hour crawled by with lamentable results. He looked at his wrist-watch and longed for the time to be up.

      The Lieutenant's increasing sense of misgiving automatically transmitted itself