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Updated: May 26, 2025
At the table sat the presiding officer, a stout man, whose head rose red and swollen above his tight collar. He had a couple of sheets of paper before him, and while interrogating constantly fidgeted with a pencil. A clerk waited with pen to paper. The hearing began. Findeisen, when questioned, maintained a stubborn silence.
His sleeve had slipped up a little, so that the word "Fraternity" could be distinctly seen. Surely there was some inconsistency here! But then Vogt reflected: how could Weise help the hypocrisy? If he had objected to taking the oath, he would simply have been imprisoned. Weise's swearing falsely was practically on compulsion; he was in the same case with Findeisen and all the others.
Do you want war? Do you want to have to go and stand up like those targets out there and be hit on the skull or in the belly by the shrapnel?" "Not I." "Perhaps you would, Findeisen?" "I? God damn me no!" "Or you, Truchsess?" The brewer thought a moment, and answered: "No, certainly not. I wish for peace. But the French might want to fight us, or the Russians." "Ha, ha!" laughed Weise.
Then the examining officer read the report aloud. "Is that correct?" he asked Wolf. "Yes, sir." He turned to Findeisen: "I ask you also, is that correct? If you have any objection to make, out with it! For as it stands, the account is not exactly favourable to you. Therefore I ask you if you have anything to say against this version?"
The reservists were just collecting before the barracks. Most of them went about arm in arm, and in their uproarious spirits made passes in the air with their betassled walking-sticks. As the little procession passed the noisy crowd, the merry songs ceased. The reservists, taken aback, stepped aside, and amid startled whispers looked after the prisoners. Findeisen walked with bowed head.
In the meantime, just get yourself up as a gunner again, my son." He ordered two of the non-commissioned officers to put Wolf and Findeisen under arrest. "Look out!" he warned the corporals. "These two scoundrels are capable of anything. And if they utter a word, then you know why you've got swords dangling at your sides!" The two prisoners were led across the yard to the guard-house.
The two orderlies took Findeisen between them and escorted him to the infirmary. Wolf went with the soldier on guard diagonally across the yard back to the guard-house. He mounted the steps composedly. Before the door he stopped for a moment, drew the fresh air deep into his lungs, and looked all round him. Then he was locked into his cell again.
And yet Findeisen had escaped! Necessity had quickened the wits of the dull lad, and had made him inventive. When they confronted him with the corpse of the sergeant, he realised that he had committed a murder; and from that moment he felt his head no longer safe on his shoulders. The fear of death lent him a subtlety of which he would never otherwise have been capable.
He gave orders that Wolf should be conducted back to his cell, while Findeisen was to be confronted with the corpse of the sergeant. Keyser's death had resulted from fracture of the skull, due to its forcible impact against the wall. The medical report, however, stated that fatal consequences had resulted on account of the unusual thinness of the skull.
He thought over everything that could serve for his defence: how he had held himself in check, so as not in any way to prolong by his own fault his time of service; how he had even looked on quietly when Findeisen obeyed the sergeant's humiliating order; but how Keyser's provocative look had made his blood boil and had driven him to his unlucky deed.
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