Winding through the trench, he encountered a group of soldiers carrying a mixture of shovels, wooden clubs, and bayonets. Along a trench wall was a piece of cord that was strung between two stakes, like a miniature clothesline, from which dozens of dead rats hung by their snake-like tails.
Hunting, he thought.
Rat infestation, which spawned disease, was a secondary battle that raged in the trenches. Unlike the battlefields where there were breaks in fighting, the rats tormented soldiers by day and night. Trench rats were large, the length of a man’s forearm not including the tail, and their bellies were bloated. They bred rapidly and were well fed from discarded food tins, human waste, and nips of flesh from sleeping soldiers. However, most of the rats’ food supply came from no-man’s-land, where they feasted on corpses of fallen soldiers.
“There!” a soldier pointing a club shouted.
A large rat, bearing its sharp, yellow incisors, squeaked and scurried into a dugout.
Bruno, his boots squelching in mud, passed the rat hunters and turned into an adjacent trench.
He expected the conditions to improve as he moved away from the front. However, as he approached a clearing, the air turned thick with a stench of burning flesh. He covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve and pressed on, but the fetor grew worse. Soon, he arrived at the source of the odor. Where a first aid tent once stood was a smoldering mass of canvass and charred corpses. Given the amount of burned remains, the triage station appeared to have contained approximately thirty injured soldiers. Distraught medics scoured the grounds, placing hunks of blackened flesh and shredded limbs into burlap bags.Oh, dear God. The poor bastards didn’t make it out of their stretchers.His body trembled. He fought back the urge to vomit and quickened his pace.
Bruno, with horrid images of burned bodies lingering in his head, hitched a ride in a transport lorry to Lille. At midday, he arrived at a large ammunition warehouse, and was greeted by Fritz Haber.
“Bruno.” Haber placed his cap under his armpit. A fine sweat gleamed on his bald head.
“Hallo, sir.” Bruno shook his hand.
Haber adjusted his pince-nez spectacles and scanned Bruno’s clothing, spattered with dried mud. “I see you’ve come directly from the trenches.”
“Ja,” Bruno said. “I didn’t want to be late.”
“Gut.” He put on his cap. “My train leaves soon, and I have much to tell you. Follow me.”
The depot, which had been a foundry before the war, contained thousands of phosgene shells—painted with a green cross—which were stacked in piles, reminiscent of partially constructed pyramids. Since his last visit to Lille, an enormous supply of shells had arrived at the depot.
Haber gestured to an aisle, the length of a passenger ship, with shells stacked on both sides. “The Imperial German Army has plans for artillery units to increase the usage of chemical weapons.”
Bruno swallowed, wondering how much of the poison in the room was manufactured by hisvater’s company, Wahler Farbwerke, and how many thousands of men would die excruciating deaths. He buried his thought and nodded.
Haber placed the tips of fingers together, as if he were holding an invisible ball. “Soon, I expect one out of every three shells fired upon our enemy to contain gas.”
“That is good news, sir,” Bruno lied. “Dankefor coming to Lille to personally show me the supply, and to inform me of my expectations.”
“That’s not the reason I summoned you,” Haber said.
Bruno straightened his back.
“At our last meeting, I promised that our chemists would be devising an arsenal of more lethal weapons.” His bespectacled eyes met Bruno’s. “Two of my top chemists, Wilhelm Lommel and Wilhelm Steinkopf, have developed a new chemical derived from sulfur mustard.”
“Congratulations, sir.”
Haber nodded. “It’s a blister agent that creates debilitating chemical burns to the skin and eyes, as well as bleeding and blistering within the respiratory system.”
Bruno’s blood turned cold. A flash of gassed corpses, skin the color of plum, filled his head.
“Large-scale production of the sulfur mustard has begun,” Haber said. “It’ll be ready for use as a weapon by summer, and I would like you to implement its use.”
A burn rose inside Bruno’s esophagus. “I am honored, sir.”
Haber placed a hand on Bruno’s shoulder. “I believe this new weapon, like no other, will instill fear in our enemy. It will break their morale. It’s only a matter of time before we win the chemical arms race, and the war.”
“Ja, sir.”
Haber removed his hand from Bruno’s shoulder. “I’ve spoken with yourvater. He’s quite pleased to have his son disperse shells that contain agents from his factory.”
Bruno nodded. He was saddened but not surprised that hisvater, as well as hismutter, hadn’t written him a letter in months.If Vater was gratified with my military service, he certainly has made no effort to tell me.
