The Road Back by Erich Maria Remarque Page A

him a smack over the mug, or not? I didn't expect it would be like this. Just get an eyeful of the way he is running about serving, slimy old shit! I just haven't the heart to do it."
    Tjaden orders and orders. To him it is a hell of a joke to see his superior officer go hopping about at his bidding.
    Seelig also has got outside of a good many by this time, and his bull-dog cranium glows again, partly from alcohol and partly from the joys of good business.
    "Let's bury the hatchet," he suggests, "and I'll stand a round of good pre-war rum."
    "Of what?" says Kosole stiffening.
    "Rum. I've still a spot or two left in the cupboard there," says Seelig innocently, going to fetch it. Kosole looks as if he had been struck in the face and glares after him.
    "He's forgotten all about it, Ferdinand," says Willy. "He wouldn't have risked that else."
    Seelig comes back and pours out the drinks. Kosole glowers at him.
    "I suppose you don't remember getting tight on rum from sheer funk once, eh? You ought to be a night watchman in a morgue, you ought!"
    Seelig makes a pacifying gesture. "That was a long time ago," says he. "That doesn't count any more."
    Ferdinand lapses into silence again. If Seelig would but once speak out of his turn the fun would begin. But this compliance puzzles Kosole and leaves him irresolute.
    Tjaden sniffs at his glass appreciatively, and the rest of us lift our noses. It is good rum, no mistake.
    Kosole knocks over his glass. "You're not standing me anything!"
    "Ach, man!" cries Tjaden, "you might have given it to me, then!" With his fingers he tries to save what he can; but it is not much.
    The place empties little by little. "Closing time, gentlemen!" cries Seelig, and pulls down the revolving shutter. We get up to go.
    "Well, Ferdinand?" I say. He shakes his head. He cannot bring himself to it. That waiter there, that's not the real Seelig at all.
    Seelig opens the door for us. "Au revoir, gentlemen! pleasant dreams!"
    "Gentlemen!" sniggers Tjaden. "Gentlemen!—'Swine' he used to say."
    Kosole is already almost outside when, glancing back along the floor, his eyes light on Seelig's legs, still clad in the same ill-omened leggings as of old. His trousers, too, have the same close-fitting military cut with piping down the seams.
    From the waist up he is inn keeper; but from the waist down sergeant-major. That settles it.
    Ferdinand swings round suddenly. Seelig retreats, and Kosole makes after him. "Now, what about it?" he snarls. "Schröder! Schröder! Schröder! Do you remember him now, you dog, damn you? Take that one, from Schröder!" His left goes home. "Greetings from the common grave!" He hits again. The inn keeper dodges, jumps behind the counter and grabs a hammer. It catches Kosole across the face and glances off his shoulder. But Kosole does not even wince, he is so enraged. He grasps hold of Seelig, and bashes his head down on the counter—there is a clatter of glass. He turns on the beer taps. "There, drink, you bloody rum keg! Suffocate, drown in your stinking pigs'-wash."
    The beer pours down Seelig's neck, it streams through his shirt into his breeches, making them swell out on his legs like balloons. Seelig bellows with rage—It is no easy thing to get such beer in these days—At last he manages to free himself and seizes a glass, with which he drives upwards against Kosole's chin.
    "Foul!" cries Willy, from where he stands in the doorway watching. "He should have butted him in the guts, and then pulled his legs from under him!"
    None of us interferes. This is Kosole's show. Even if he were to get a hiding, it would not be our business to help him. We stand by merely to see that no ones tries to help Seelig. But Tjaden has already explained the matter in half a dozen words, and nobody is now disposed to take his part.
    Ferdinand's face is bleeding fast; he now gets properly mad and quickly makes short work of Seelig. With a hook to the jaw he brings him down, he straddles over him and bashes