He filled his bucket and swung it to the boy above him, who gave it to Müller, who was manning the barrow. The wind began to blow and the rain fell harder, needling his face. It was hard work lifting his feet from the muck, which held on tight and released them only reluctantly, with a sucking noise. He lost count of how many buckets he’d filled. The sameness of the motion deceived him. He counted some twice and missed others, but he counted anyway. The numbers gave rhythm to his work. He wiped the mud from his eyes and took another bucket from the stack. Where did it come from, this endless supply of dirt? They could break themselves against it, and when they were done, the trench would absorb it all, their digging and their hauling, their buckets and barrows, and would fill itself again, unmarked.
He set his shovel aside and funneled the dirt with his hands. His neck hurt from leaning, but he didn’t slow his pace. Fear kept him working. Every now and again the sergeant walked along the trench, looking for slackers. He was old and his arm was wrecked, and he always wore a sling. He called them out when they slowed down. “Give me twenty,” he’d say, or fifty sometimes if he was cranky, right there in the dirt, for all the others to see. “Best be ready,” he told them, “the Amis are coming. The British, too. I can hear them already.”
“Du, Huber.” A voice called from the top of the trench. “Come up here.”
Georg squinted into the rain. He shielded his face with his hands and looked.
The voice called him again, and in a friendly tone. “Come on up,” it said. “I’ll trade with you.”
Müller stood overhead, his arms on his hips. He was working the barrow today. It was the job that all the others wanted. He could stand up straight and sneak a cigarette, and when the lunch girls came he ate first and didn’t have to wait. He waved at Georg and slid down the side. He smiled easy as a beachgoer as he went. It was summertime, this was how he acted, it was June and the sun was shining on the water, and there was no rain for him and no cold. Georg looked at him and wondered how someone like Müller could sleep in the same room with the others and eat at their tables.
“Get up there, Huber.” Müller reached for the shovel. “Get going before the sergeant comes back. Hurry, hurry or I’ll change my mind.” He laughed then and pushed Georg toward the wall.
The rain stopped and started and stopped again, and the sun began to shine. Georg emptied the buckets as they came. He stood beside a bare apple tree and stretched his arms, and when the barrow was full, he pushed it across the road and tipped it. It was easy work, and a few times he sat under the tree and closed his eyes. He ate two bowls of soup when lunchtime came, finishing before the others had even climbed up, and when he tried to fill his bowl again, the girl took the ladle from him and gave him only broth. He took a piece of bread when she wasn’t looking. He set it in his pocket, careful to wrap it so it wouldn’t get too soggy.
The boys came up from below. Their muscles twitched from bending over the buckets. They stretched and leaned against the tree trunks. Müller stood with them while he ate. The dirt had dried on his face and cracked like leather. “It’s easy work,” he told Georg, setting down his empty bowl. “It’s not so bad.” He climbed back down with a wave. Georg stopped at the edge and watched him work the shovel. There was no explaining Müller, why he chose Georg and not someone else, what strange charity moved him. He was god of the dormitory. He acted with a random benevolence.
Georg waited for Müller when the shift was done. He tried to thank him, but Müller shook his head. “We’ll miss the digging when we’re gone from here,” he said. There’d be rain for weeks and then snow. The water would freeze in the trench, and all the dirt would be hard like stone and no pick and no shovel could break it, and still they’d miss it. “Things will only get worse when we leave. We’ll miss the hole then and all our shovels,” Müller told him. “We’ll miss the rain and the sergeant, too.” It wasn’t true what he said. They wouldn’t miss the sergeant and his puckered face, but Georg laughed anyway.
The boys left for dinner in small groups. They didn’t march at night, and they carried no banners. They hobbled like old men. They swung their arms and turned their heads around and their faces were caked with mud. Georg and Müller stayed behind. They let the others go ahead. “We’ll finish here,” Müller said. “See you at dinner,” and they stacked all the buckets and turned the barrows over and leaned the shovels against the walls.
When they were done Müller reached over and took Georg’s hand again, but he didn’t look at Georg’s face. He looked at the ground instead. “It’s late,” he said.
Georg pulled his hand free. He reached up and touched Müller’s dirty cheek, and he was surprised even then at how bold he was and how unafraid. It came easy as breathing, touching Müller.
They walked together, and Müller lit a cigarette. He looked like a wolf, the way he pulled on his cigarette. He smoked Zubans, No. 6 if he could find them, but he smoked Junos, too, and Africaines. He wasn’t picky. “I’ve got chocolate for your cigarettes,” he’d say to the older boys, and he was quick to make his deals. He kept his packs hidden because the Unterbannführer was a stickler when it came to tobacco.
They were just by the trees when Georg heard a whistle. He stopped and turned around to look. The last boys had climbed up, two tall ones and a stocky one with bowed legs. He hadn’t seen them down below. They must have hidden against the wall and waited. They reached the top and stood together, and then they walked toward the valley that lay beyond the trench. They looked behind them and all around. Maybe they smelled Müller’s cigarette. They walked slowly at first, then faster and faster until they were running, heads low and arms pumping like pistons at their sides. Georg and Müller stood under the trees and watched them go. They stood like that for a good while, and Georg breathed hard at the strangeness of what he’d seen. They’d be sorry if they were caught. They’d swing from the trees. They’d be sent east, and the snow would cover them. Twelve hours is all they had before the commanders would find them missing, maybe less if someone saw their empty beds before the lights went out. Twelve hours running through the trees, twelve hours in the dark, and still he was jealous.
Müller dropped his cigarette. He ground it down with his heel, and they began to walk again. They stopped just before the path turned and looked back, but Georg saw only the hills against the sky, only shadows in the field and the first pale stars.
The notifications came in no particular order. Boys left the wall without regard to their surnames or month of birth or the training they’d done. The commander called them to his office, and they were gone within a day or maybe two. Most were glad to go. It’s about time, they said, I’ve been playing long enough in the sandbox. But a few knew how to fly, and they were angry when their orders came. They weren’t infantrymen, not with all the tests they’d passed and all their glider flights. What a waste it was. What a waste of good pilots, and they kept the wing patches on their shirts anyway just so people would know. Georg shook their hands when they left. He told them there might be planes where they were going, you never could tell. He waved from the curb, and he was glad the Unterbannführer had called their names and not his and not Müller’s either.