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and lockers were being kicked to matchwood, and in between we heard his screeching, howling and sobbing voice: mangy swine, curs, etc. We blenched, pale as we already were. Geerner was in real form. He would be properly warmed up by the time he got to Room 26. We jumped out of our bunks and went over the whole room again, but we could find nothing.
    The door flew open with a bang.
    Oh, if only someone else than Schnitzius had been room orderly, someone with a little more gumption!
    Schnitzius stood there rigid and deathly pale, quite short-circuited. He could only stare at Geerner with terrified eyes. Geemer reached him in one bound, and from a distance of two inches roared at him:
    "What the hell, man! Am I to wait all night for you to report?"
    Schnitzius got his report made in a quavering voice.
    "All in order?" snorted Geerner. "You're making a false report!"
    "No, Herr Unteroffizier," replied Schnitzius, his voice trembling, while he slowly turned round on his heel so that he kept facing Geerner as the latter prowled round the room, peering and looking.
    For some minutes all was silent as the grave. We lay in our bunks, our eyes following Geerner as he walked slowly round looking for dust. He raised up the table and wiped under each of the legs. No dirt. He examined the soles of our boots. Clean. The windows and the lamp cord. Nothing. He glared at our feet as though he would drop dead if he did not find something to object to.
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    In the end he stood and surveyed the room with mournful, intent gaze. It really looked as though he was not going to be able to get us this time. He was exactly like someone whose girl has not turned up at the rendezvous and who thus must go home and to bed with himself and his fearful, unsatisfied longings.
    He was just shutting the door behind him when he spun round on his heel.
    "All in order, you said? I wonder."
    In one great bound he was beside our coffeepot, a large aluminum pot holding three gallons. Each evening it had to be polished bright and filled with clean water, and that it was so Geerner had regretfully discovered a moment before. But now we realized-- and our hearts missed a beat--that Geerner had thought of something new.
    He stood and peered at the surface of the water from the side. It was impossible to avoid a few grains of dust settling on the water once it had been standing for some minutes.
    Geerner's howl was fantastic.
    "Call this clean water! Who the hell is the filthy pig who filled this pot with --? Come here, you dung-covered splashboard!"
    Geerner mounted a chair and Schnitzius had to hand the can to him.
    "'Shun! Head back! Open your gob!"
    Slowly the can was emptied into Schnitzius' mouth. He was almost suffocated. When the can was empty the insane NCO flung it at the wall, then he rushed out of the room and we heard him making a clatter in the washroom and a tap being turned on. Shortly afterward he flung a bucket of water into the room. When he had sent us six pailfuls, we were told to dry it up. Having only a couple of ragged floor cloths, it took some time before the floor was dry.
    He repeated that joke four times before it palled. Then Unteroffizier Geerner went comforted to bed, and we were left in peace.
    Furor germanicus is what the old Romans called the special kind of battle madness they encountered when waging war with the tribes north of the Alps. May it be some slight comfort to the Romans and to the other hard-tried enemies of the Germans to know that the Germans are as demented in dealing with themselves as with their neighbors.
    Furor germanicus --the German or Prussian disease.
    Geerner was a poor NCO, a diseased wretch who had to content himself with rendezvous with dust.
    Peace be with him.
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    The commandant thereupon handed the company over to the chaplain. "No. 3 Company--for prayers--KNEEL!" roared the chaplain.
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One Kind of Soldier
     
    Our training ended with an exercise that lasted seven days and sleepless nights. It took