Читать книгу All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque - Страница 13

7

naturally we couldn’t blame kantorek for this. he, like thousands of others, were convinced that they were acting for the best, in a way that cost them nothing. and that is why they let us down so badly.

...strange to say, behm was one of the first of us to fall. he got hit in the eye during an attack, and we left him lying for dead.

for us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity. the idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and more humane wisdom...

...but the first death we saw shattered this belief. we had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs.

that afternoon we heard him call and saw him crawling about in no man’s land.

because he could not see, and was mad with pain, he failed to keep under cover, and so was shot down.