Four Soldiers

[This is the second story in my ongoing translation project of Wolfgang Borchert's On this Tuesday: Nineteen Stories.]

Four soldiers. And they were made of wood and hunger and earth. Of snowstorm and homesickness and whiskers. Four soldiers. And over them shells roared and bit into the snow with black poison yelps. The wood of their four lost faces stood stiffly chiseled in the flickering oil light. Only when the iron above them cried and shattered with frightful barking, one of the wooden heads laughed. And the others grinned gray afterwards. And the oil light bent despondently.
Four soldiers.
Then two blue-red streaks contorted themselves amid the whiskers: Good Lord. Here it won’t need to be plowed in the spring. And not fertilized either, hissed the earth.
One of them confidently rolled a cigarette: Hopefully this isn’t a turnip field. I couldn’t stand turnips in death. But for instance, how do you like radishes? Radishes for all eternity?
The blue-red lips contorted: If only there weren’t earthworms. That will be mighty hard to get used to.
The one in the corner said: But you won’t notice that anymore.
Who said that? asked the cigarette roller, why, who said that?
Then they were quiet. And above them screamed an angry death through the night. It tore black blue at the snow. Then they grinned again. And they looked at the beams above them. But the beams promised nothing.
Then one of them coughed out of his corner: Well, we will see. On that you can all count. And the “count” came so hoarse that the oil light flickered.
Four soldiers. But one who said nothing. He slid his thumbs up and down his rifle. Up and down. Up and down. And he pressed himself against his rifle. But he hated nothing so much as he hated this rifle. Only when it roared above them, then he held himself firmly to it. The oil light bent despondently in his eyes. Then the cigarette roller nudged him. The small one with the hated rifle nervously rubbed the stubble around his mouth. His face was made of hunger and homesickness.
Then the cigarette roller said: You, hand that oil lamp here. Sure, said the small one, and he put his rifle between his knees. And then he took his hand out of his coat and took the oil light and handed it toward him. But then the light fell from his hand. And went out. And went out.
Four soldiers. Their breath was too large and too lonely in the darkness. Then the small one laughed out loud and smacked his hand against his knee:
Boy do I have a shudder! Did you see that? The lamp fell right out of my hand. Such a shudder.
The small one laughed loudly. But in the dark he pressed himself tightly against the rifle that he hated so much.
And the one in the corner thought: No one is amongst us, no one, who does not shake.
The cigarette roller however said: Yes, one shakes all day long. It comes from the cold. This miserable cold.
Then the iron roared above them and shredded the night and the snow.
They are blowing up all the radishes, grinned the one with the blue-red lips.
And they held themselves firmly to their hated rifles. And laughed. Laughed at the dark dark valley.