Free Iron Gustav by Hans Fallada Page B

o’clock break they saw a smart cab stop outside. Nobody took any notice except Porzig, who could not resist a spiteful, ‘See the rival of our beloved Heinz. Hackendahl, decline
equus
, a hack.’
    ‘Don’t you start a row, Porzig,’ warned Hoffmann.
    ‘As a matter of fact, it’s my father’s cab,’ said Heinz Hackendahl. ‘Did you think I’m ashamed of it?’
    ‘Behold!’ said Porzig, mimicking the teacher of Greek. ‘Forsooth, Hackendahl, and is there verity in the street rumour that the
Imperial stables are negotiating with your honourable father anent the purchase of yon shining steed?’
    The grey, old Hackendahl’s favourite, looked uncommonly pitiable; after that morning’s misadventure she was only the wreck of a horse. The Upper Third boys looked first at the grey and then at the two antagonists. Heinz Hackendahl and Hermann Porzig were sworn enemies, their skirmishes a recurring treat for the class.
    ‘Don’t bray, Hermann,’ said Heinz calmly. ‘The Porzigs are stinking coyotes – on hearing the war cry they hide in the wigwams of the squaws.’ (This was a memory from the beloved author, Karl May.)
    ‘We see nowhere the shining pot hat of our
Patris equorum
, the badge of the Cabmen’s Guild,’ resumed Porzig with assumed apprehension, his imagination greatly stimulated by the circle of listening boys. ‘Why does he tarry? Why does he not protect his steed against the slings and arrows of the sausage-makers? Is he putting down, forsooth, a spot of Kümmel in some cheap bar? Speak, legitimate offspring of a cab!’
    Current in the school was the never-to-be-forgotten story of how old Fritz, the Great Frederick, had once presented a silver chamber pot to the Court of Appeal as a mark of his annoyance at its judgment against him in a certain case. Hermann Porzig was the son of a magistrate of that Court of Appeal. Hence the reply of Heinz: ‘The shining pot-hat of my father pales before the glitter of the silver chamber pot. Is it true that your father has to scrub out this gracious gift every Saturday, and that you, my lord, are permitted to spit on the scrubbing brush?’
    A shudder went through the audience on hearing this deadly insult. Porzig, one who bestowed gibes more easily than he received them, turned crimson.
    ‘Retract the chamber pot,’ he screamed. ‘It’s an insult to the whole Court of Appeal.’
    ‘Never!’ cried Heinz Hackendahl. ‘You insulted my father.’
    ‘But you insulted the entire Court of Appeal. Will you retract?’
    ‘Never!’
    ‘Fight it out?’
    ‘Fight it out!’
    ‘Windy?’
    ‘Not me!’
    ‘To the death?’
    ‘To the death – till one side begs for mercy,’ said Heinz, thus completing the traditional challenge. He looked round. ‘Hoffmann, you’re my second.’
    ‘Ellenberg, you’re mine.’
    ‘Let’s leave it till later,’ suggested Hoffmann soberly. ‘We’ve only got three minutes left.’
    ‘And in one he’ll start whining!’
    They had already removed their jackets, burning for the fray.
    ‘One – two – three!’ shouted the seconds. The combatants approached, tested each other’s defence, gained their grip, leaned breast to breast and forehead to forehead – then a moment later were rolling in the dust.
    In his study the headmaster was telling an anxious father: ‘You mustn’t take a youthful indiscretion too seriously, Herr Hackendahl. The saying “Youth and folly go hand in hand” is truer today than ever.’
    ‘Stealing is hardly an indiscretion, it is a sin,’ contradicted Hackendahl.
    ‘The youth of today has a craving for amusement, a craving unknown to our generation,’ declared the headmaster. ‘A long peace has made the young soft …’
    ‘Yes, we want a thoroughgoing war,’ cried Hackendahl.
    ‘For heaven’s sake, no! Have you ever thought of the proportions a modern war would assume?’
    ‘About a small nation in the Balkans? It would be over in six weeks and have done the young a lot of