"Come on!" says the old man. "And we're taking the others right away; come here, Rudolf; two such strict blokes are indeed a bit much!"
The Reckensteiner has been tough and hard his whole life long. But the comradeship up until death that shows itself to him here forces tears into his eyes; he is not ashamed of them. "And yet there writes one, who does not understand it, that men become beasts when self-preservation comes into question!" he mutters in the ice-gray moustache. "Absolutely wrong, like so much that I have learned out of books. After this war, I'll read no more books at all."
"Mr. von Barrnhoff!" it sounds up to him. The voice is known to him; he has often heard it in his life. And not only known, but loved and trusted for many years. He looks around himself and sees a wounded officer with whom a young doctor is occupied.
"Fritz, my dear boy... it's really you! And look... the confounded gang! You had a cursed, difficult position. The dogs lay near you eight hundred meters. But you will even manage it... even manage!"
Never in his life had he called him by his first name, never "dear boy," but rather always quite formally with his title or surname. But in a moment like this what are title and
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formality! On this bloody border wall of time and eternity, where hands reached out to him and death and life in an unending alternating dance!
"A small graze, Major - or no, Commander, I must say now," replies the other, and his face shines with joy over this unexpected reunion with the Reckensteiner -, "here on my left arm, just as I wanted to put the binoculars up to my eyes. They are bandaging me, and I will go right back into the field, right, doctor?"
"By no means, Captain; the wound, which indeed is negligible now, would get worse, and you could become unfit for service for a long time.
