The Road Back by Erich Maria Remarque Page A

and with all my weight plant my boot in my assailant's stomach. He sighs and topples over. Immediately three others fall on me and drag me down. "Lights out, knives out!" cries the woman.
    Between the trampling legs I can see Ludwig with his free left hand throttling one sailor, whom he has brought down by giving him a crack behind the knees. He still hangs on, though the others are hoeing into him with all their might. Then someone swipes me over the head with a belt-buckle and another treads on my teeth. Wolf promptly seizes him by the calf of his leg, but still we are unable to rise; they knock us down again every time and would tread us to pulp. Wild with rage, I try to get at my revolver. But at that moment one of the attackers crashes backwards to the pavement beside me. A second crash—another fellow unconscious—and straightway a third—this can have only one meaning: Willy is on the job.
    He came storming up at top gallop, flung off his pack as he ran and now is standing over us, raging. He seizes them in twos by the nape of the neck, one in each hand, and bashes their heads together. Both are knocked out on the instant—when Willy gets mad he is a living sledge hammer. We break free. I jump up, but the attackers make off. I just manage to land one of them a blow in the small of bis back with my pack and then turn to look after Ludwig.
    But Willy is in full pursuit. He saw the two sailors who made the first attack on Ludwig. One now lies there in the gutter, blue and groaning—and like a flying hurricane with red hair he is hot on the heels of the other.
    Ludwig's arm has been trodden on and the blood is oozing through the bandage. His face is smeared with mud and his forehead torn by a heel. He wipes himself down and rises slowly. "Hurt much?" I ask him. Deathly pale, he shakes his head.
    In the meantime Willy has captured the sailor and is lugging him along like a sack. "You bloody cow!" he storms. "There you've been sitting in your ships taking the summer air all the war and never have heard so much as a shot fired; and now you think it's time for you to open your beer trap and attack front-line soldiers, do you? You let me catch you! Kneel down, you malingering sod! Kneel down and ask his pardon!"
    He thrusts the fellow down before Ludwig with an air ferocious enough to put the fear of God into any man. "I'll massacre you!" he snarls. "I'll tear you to bits! Kneel! Down on your knees!"
    The man whimpers. "Let him alone, Willy," says Ludwig, picking up his things.
    "What?" says Willy incredulously. "Are you mad! After they've trampled all over your arm!"
    Ludwig is ready to go. "Ach, let him go—"
    For a moment Willy continues staring at Ludwig; then with a shake of his head he releases the sailor. "Right you are, then. Now, run like hell!" But he cannot resist letting fly at the last moment and giving the fellow a kick that sends him through a double somersault.
    We go on our way. Willy curses—he must talk when he is angry. But Ludwig is silent.
    Suddenly we see the gang of runaways coming back round the corner of Beer Street. They have gathered reinforcements.
    Willy unslings his rifle. "Load, and prepare to fire!" says he, his eyes narrowing. Ludwig draws out his revolver and I also put my gun in readiness. Until now it has merely been a free fight; but this time is going to be earnest. We do not mean to be set upon a second time.
    We deploy across the street at intervals of three paces so as not to form one single compact target; then we advance. The dog understands at once what is afoot. He slinks along growling in the gutter beside us. He too has learned at the Front to advance under cover.
    "At twenty yards we fire!" threatens Willy.
    The crowd facing us moves anxiously. We advance far ther. Rifles are pointed at us. With a click Willy slips his  safety-catch and from his belt takes the hand-grenade he still carries as an iron ration. "I count up to three—"
    An older man, wearing an N.C.O.'s