The Unexpected Rations

The following is an original classroom passage inspired by the themes and opening situation of Chapter 1; it is not an extract from the novel. The soldiers had expected another ordinary day at the front. Instead, a kitchen cart arrived carrying more food than usual. The cook counted the portions twice, puzzled. There were enough servings for a much larger group. Paul and his friends soon learned why: the company had returned from the front with far fewer men than it had set out with. The extra food was meant for the missing soldiers. For a moment, the men were glad to have full plates. Then the reason for those plates settled over them. The meal was generous, but it had been made possible by loss. Paul remembered their old teacher, Kantorek, who had urged his students to volunteer for the war. In the classroom, patriotic speeches had made enlistment sound noble and straightforward. At the front, the young men had discovered fear, exhaustion and grief. The distance between those speeches and their daily lives felt enormous. Paul looked around at his friends. They were still young, but the war had changed what they expected from life. They had learned to depend on one another, yet they could not return to the carefree people they had been before. Paul wondered what future could belong to a generation whose youth had been spent in war.

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