It brings a lump into the throat to see how they go over, and run and fall. A man would like to spank them, they are so stupid, and to take them by the arm and lead them away from here where they have no business to be. They wear grey coats and trousers and boots, but for most of them the uniform is far too big, it hangs on their limbs, their shoulders are too narrow, their bodies too slight; no uniform was ever made to these childish measurements.
Between five and ten recruits fall to every old hand.
A surprise gas-attack carries off a lot of them. They have not yet learned what to do. We found one dugout full of them, with blue heads and black lips. Some of them in a shell-hole took off their masks too soon; they did not know that the gas lies longest in the hollows; when they saw others on top without masks they pulled theirs off too and swallowed enough to scorch their lungs. Their condition is hopeless, they choke to death with haemorrhages and suffocation.
In one part of the trench I suddenly run into Himmelstoss. We dive into the same dugout. Breathless we are all lying one beside the other waiting for the charge.
When we run out again, although I am very excited, I suddenly think: “Where’s Himmelstoss?” Quickly I jump back into the dugout and find him with a small scratch lying in a corner pretending to be wounded. His face looks sullen. He is in a panic; he is new to it too. But it makes me mad that the young recruits should be out there and he here.
“Get out!” I spit.
He does not stir, his lips quiver, his moustache twitches.
“Out!” I repeat.
He draws up his legs, crouches back against the wall, and shows his teeth like a cur.
I seize him by the arm and try to pull him up. He barks.
This is too much for me. I grab him by the neck and shake him like a sack, his head jerks from side to side.
“You lump, will you get out—you hound, you skunk, sneak out of it, would you?” His eye becomes glassy, I knock his head against the wall—“You cow”—I kick him in the ribs—“You swine”—I push him toward the door and shove him out head first.
Another wave of our attack has just come up. A lieutenant is with them. He sees us and yells: “Forward, forward, join in, follow.” And the word of command does what all my banging could not. Himmelstoss hears the order, looks round him as if awakened, and follows on.
I come after and watch him go over. Once more he is the smart Himmelstoss of the parade-ground, he has even outstripped the lieutenant and is far ahead.
Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades—words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.
Our faces are encrusted, our thoughts are devastated, we are weary to death; when the attack comes we shall have to strike many of the men with our fists to waken them and make them come with us—our eyes are burnt, our hands are torn, our knees bleed, our elbows are raw.
How long has it been? Weeks—months—years? Only days. We see time pass in the colourless faces of the dying, we cram food into us, we run, we throw, we shoot, we kill, we lie about, we are feeble and spent, and nothing supports us but the knowledge that there are still feebler, still more spent, still more helpless ones there who, with staring eyes, look upon us as gods that escape death many times.
In the few hours of rest we teach them. “There, see that waggle-top? That’s a mortar coming. Keep down, it will go clean over. But if it comes this way, then run for it. You can run from a mortar.”
We sharpen their ears to the malicious, hardly audible buzz of the smaller shells that are not easily distinguishable. They must pick them out from the general din by their insect-like hum—we explain to them that these are far more dangerous than the big ones that can be heard long beforehand.
We show them how to take cover from aircraft, how to simulate a dead man when one is overrun in an attack, how to time hand-grenades so that they explode half a second before hitting the ground; we teach them to fling themselves into holes as quick as lightning before the shells with instantaneous fuses; we show them how to clean up a trench with a handful of bombs; we explain the difference between the fuse-length of the enemy bombs and our own; we put them wise to the sound of gas shells;—show them all the tricks that can save them from death.
They listen, they are docile—but when it begins again, in their excitement they do everything wrong.
Haie Westhus drags off with a great wound in his back through which the lung pulses at every breath. I can only press his hand; “It’s all up, Paul,” he groans and he bites his arm because of the pain.
We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off, they stagger on their splintered stumps into the next shell-hole; a lance-corporal crawls a mile and a half on his hands dragging his smashed knee after him; another goes to the dressing station and over his clasped hands bulge his intestines; we see men without mouths, without jaws, without faces; we find one man who has held the artery of his arm in his teeth for two hours in order not to bleed to death. The sun goes down, night comes, the shells whine, life is at an end.
Still the little piece of convulsed earth in which we lie is held. We have yielded no more than a few hundred yards of it as a prize to the enemy. But on every yard there lies a dead man.
We have just
