11

The trees are green and spring has come to the front. Death is just another thing to deal with: "Our thoughts are clay, they are molded with the changes of the days;--when we are resting they are good; under fire, they are dead. Fields of craters within and without" (Remarque, 271). For the men on the front, nothing exists besides life and death. All other distinctions are gone. We are soldiers, comrades, and that is all. That is what holds them together. I think back to Detering, who spotted a cherry tree in full bloom near their billets and picked a few blossoms. The men made fun of him. That night, I heard him moving around and spoke to him. Detering told him of his own cherry trees back home. I, suspecting that he would desert, stayed up all night waiting, but Detering didn't do anything. The next morning, however, he was gone. We later heard that he had been caught by the military police. We have heard nothing of him since
Muller is dead; before he died though he gave me Kemmerich's boots. I have promised them to Tjaden next. We cannot bury Muller because their line is falling back too quickly. Healthy, well-fed English and American troops are overrunning them, while we are sick and starving. Our supplies are almost gone, and the food is terrible. Even so, we don't think that the end is near. We know only two things, fighting and the hospital, where doctors send men who shouldn't fight back to the front to fight. Tanks roll over us, gas burns our lungs. "Trenches, hospitals, the common grave--there are no other possibilities" (Remarque, 283).
Summer comes and it is obvious to everyone that we are losing the war. Airplanes now fly over us and kill at will. We are badly outnumbered. The heat and weather oppress us. Kat had been hit in the leg while bringing food. I fixed his leg up, but Kat was bleeding badly. I grabbed him and dragged him through the field to the nearest dressing-station. We made it to a hole and sat out the shell fire, where we traded addresses, and then they move on. Finally, after a great amount of effort, I reached the dressing station with Kat in my arms. I was exhausted, but overjoyed that Kat was going to be all right. At that moment, however, an orderly walks up and tells me that I has wasted my energy--Kat is dead. A splinter from a grenade hit him in the back of his head. I could not believe it at first, but Kat no longer moves or breathes. "Do I walk? Have I feet still? I raise my eyes, I let them move round, and turn myself with them, one circle, one circle, and I stand in the midst. All is as usual. Only the Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky has died. Then I know nothing more." (Remarque, 291)

* Bushmen: An offensive term for San people.
"In the outward form of our life we are hardly distinguishable from Bushmen" (Remarque, 274).
* Flotillas: a group of things operating or moving together
"Shells, gas clouds, flotillas of tanks- shattering, corroding, death" (Remarque, 283)


This shows the German view of the British, for while Britain’s naval forces nearly tripled that of Germany, they still waited for back up fo that they could utterly destroy the German forces.


I almost cried when Kat died, I realised then that no matter how strong or brave any solder may be, it is his friends and comrades out there that keep him going on.