Menzke tells
Event ID: 386
Categories:
29 January 1918
Source ID: 10
‘Manfred’s visit is imminent. His harbinger was, as usual, Menzke, his fellow, the sturdy Silesian with the slow word, the square shoulders and the loyal mind. Needless to say, there was a big hello in the kitchen again, an extended coffee fight! (But only acorn coffee, which we brewed ourselves, because there is no more grain coffee). There are the questioning, teasing voices again: ‘Mr Menzke, have you ever flown before?’ Menzke, a little offended: ‘Well, yes…’ His cavalry captain once gave him a lift and told him beforehand: ‘Menzke, make your will.’ And Menzke: ‘Well, I didn’t have anything to bequeath, ne wah. – And now he told us about his funny adventure, the cavalry captain rocked him a lot, he wasn’t entirely comfortable in the crate, but – well – at least he behaved better than Moritz, the squadron dog, who was also there once. At first he lay quite still, but when he glided he…well, I had to clean up the crate afterwards anyway.’ ‘Now that’s something bombastic, Mr Menzke,’ the red-cheeked sirens beckon. Menzke first rolls himself the inevitable cigarette (how quickly the coarse farmer’s fists understand that.) ‘Well – well…we probably threw bombs every night for a while…at first it was fun when a chap like that tried to sneak up on us, high above the clouds of course. But we did get the hang of it. When he switched off the engine to glide, Mr Rittmeister said: ‘Here it comes!’ And that’s right, a few things came crashing down. The jolly Lieutenant Wolff laughed mightily: ‘Such an old box,’ he said, ‘it must have burnt out of the museum. The Inglischmän was clearly visible in the full moon, perhaps sixty metres high. What cheek! We hit him a few more times on the bast with the carbine. Then he made him get away.’ ‘The day after that,’ Menzke continues after an artificial pause, ’we gave them a good beating ourselves. Then all our gentlemen grabbed a captured English M.G. and shot themselves. It was a beautiful moon again. The gentlemen didn’t even go to sleep. They sat in the casino and played cards. Then the cheeky English came again, a whole squadron and quite deep. They were after our precious machines, of course. That’s the headlights playing! Bauzn bauz, make the bombs. But then our English M.G.s gave us acid, and Lieutenant Schaefer said: ‘They’ve got their fat. And that’s right: a few of the brothers had to make an emergency landing and were taken prisoner.’ Silence – only the plates clatter. Menzke rolls himself a new cigarette and lights up with relish. ‘Well,’ he remarks profoundly. ‘I think our cavalry captain got the lords that back then, because he can shoot, man! Once I was at the airfield, it was near Douai, and I asked: ‘Where is my Rittmeister? I look up into the sky and see an enemy aeroplane coming through the clouds with the cavalry captain following behind. He fell straight out of the sun. But he didn’t shoot; he never liked to do that when the other one was gliding. Only when the Englishman caught himself and wanted to move out again did he give him the full sheaf. The two-seater hit a roof in the neighbouring village. ‘Get the car ready! He jumped in while still in his flying colours. There was a cheer in the village when the infantrymen recognised the Herr Rittmeister… Another time – right, that was also near Douai – the English came buzzing over our airfield again one morning. I look at my watch – it’s just before seven o’clock. Alarm! The cavalry captain gets out of the trap and into his trousers. ‘Boots here!’ he yells. He pulls Ulanka right over his nightshirt; outside he jumps into the car and stops on the running board. Into the plane… I wait and wait. Half an hour later he’s already back, washes himself, shaves, goes to the toilet. Yawns a bit. I say: ‘I should remind Mr Rittmeister that he wants to go to Douai for a swim. ‘First congratulate me,’ he says, ‘I’ve earned it. He had also brought down a two-seater, a fighter plane – in the afternoon he shot another one down.’ The girls want to know how they live out there. ‘Oh,’ says Menzke, stretching, ’quite well so far. In the morning, when I went in to see the cavalry captain, I always did the honours first. But he forbade that. Then I always report straight away: time, weather, cloud movement; as accurately as possible, it’s the same every morning, because – wah…’ (This is followed by a lengthy briefing on the weather situation and the air service.) Does Mr Rittmeister not get terribly excited after an air battle? ‘Not a bit, just tired – he likes to lie down for a while. He also likes to lie on his bed for half an hour in the afternoon, with his clothes and boots on…I tiptoe in, put a blanket under his feet so that the bed linen doesn’t get dirty, wah. I go out again just as quietly, because I know he’s not asleep, he’s just thinking. And I stand outside the door and listen to make sure everything is quiet. And if the other gentlemen are a bit noisy, I take my sign under my arm – it says: ‘Quiet! I hang it up. Mr Rittmeister has ordered it that way, and if it’s not obeyed, he can get pretty ‘scratchy’… Well – you have to do your duty, ne wah; but then you can count on him rock solid. He gave me a nice jumper last winter. For very special achievements there’s probably also a gold watch. He has organised holidays for some people and helped them when they had bad news from home…’ How tenderly concerned his bourgeois, slightly throaty voice had sounded when the brave spoke of ‘his’ cavalry captain’s need for rest – how he stood anxiously listening outside the door, his shield under his arm, while inside the squadron leader lay on the bed, his head full of decisive thoughts, his feet on the sheet spread out as a precaution – ‘so that the bed linen doesn’t get dirty…ne wah’.’
Comments (0)