This silence came upon the
deafening din like a paralyzing weight and filled space with a tense
expectancy that flickered in all eyes. He wanted to rid himself of this
oppression and crept through the crumbling shaft up to the top.
The first thing he saw was Weixler's curved back. He was holding his
field-glass glued to his eyes under cover of a shooting shield. The
others were also standing as if pasted to their posts, and there was
something alarming in the motionlessness of their shoulder blades. All
at once a twitching ran through the petrified row. Weixler sprang back,
jostled against the captain, and cried out: "They are coming!" Then he
stormed to the shaft and blew the alarm whistle.
Marschner stared after him helplessly. He walked with hesitating steps
to the shield and looked out upon the wide, smoke-covered field, which
curved beyond the tangle of wires, grey, torn, blood-flecked, like the
bloated form of a gigantic corpse. Far in the background the sun was
sinking. Its great copper disc already cut in half by the horizon seemed
to be growing out of the ground. And against that dazzling background
black silhouettes were dancing like midges under a microscope, like
Indians swinging their tomahawks. They were still mere specks. Sometimes
they disappeared entirely and then leaped high, and came nearer, their
rifles wriggling in the air like the feet of a polyp.
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