This Month's Installment
Thus stands the long row of carriages below in the ravine between the two mountain ridges, and above them, the grenades sing through the air and often explode not very far from them and, bursting, whistle their splinters on the rails.The wounded lay on their seats and cushions; many hardly know what is happening; the seriously injured are indifferent; the others also have gradually become used to these noises; they no longer bring them out of their rest.---167---On his bed on the coal car, the Russian captain sits upright. Or rather he crouches, half sitting, half lying; because his wounds burn. But he does not grimace; his face remains pallid, waxen, iron; now and then his healthy left arm reaches for the gray field coat and draws it up quite close. That is the only movement of his body, which is otherwise motionless like a stump. No one is allowed to leave the train. The old Reckensteiner alone remains outside, shouting to the carriages here and there.Out of the farmstead over there, fire blazes up; straight as an arrow, columns of smoke and flame rise in the motionless air. And from the heights all around, the guns crackle; black clouds of dust and dirt roll over the raging earth; uprooted plants fly about, as if it were a world in turmoil and the entire universe were burning.The old man thinks about Fritz, about his other wounded. Whether he will lead them out of this wild confusion well, whether the locomotive will come back on time. But also that without excitement. Only with compassionate care for the good, brave blokes who lay there in their wounds. "God may grant it!" he says to himself. Nothing further.Suddenly, his thoughts are in Reckenstein. It was actually a nice time that he spent there, despite some bereavements and sorrows. Now it lies behind him like something that once was and can never return again, not even in changed form, something that never really was, a dream that he dreamt once in some night of joy.
Grammatical Minutia
I moved around some elements in "wie eine kerzengerade Säule steigen Rauch und Flamme in die unbewegte Luft." Literally, it's something like "like a straight-as-an-arrow column, smoke and flame rise in the motionless air," but I condensed this a bit and translated it as "straight as an arrow, columns of smoke and flame rise in the motionless air"
