In the evening my platoon, that had hitherto been a detached party in the second line, was brought forward into the village on account of the uncertain state of the front. We were given the underground quarry as our quarters. We made ourselves comfortable in its numerous recesses, and heaped up an enormous fire. The shaft of the well served as chimney, as we could tell from the rage of certain company cooks who were nearly suffocated while drawing water. We had had a double ration of grog, and we sat on lumps of chalk round the fire and sang and drank and smoked.
At midnight the salient in front of Monchy became an inferno. Dozens of alarm-bells were ringing, hundreds of rifles were firing, and green and white rockets went up without ceasing. Immediately on this our barrage came down, and a trail of fiery sparks could be seen each time a heavy trench-mortar fulminated. Through it all, wherever a human soul inspired the tumult, there rang out the long-drawn cry, “Gas attack! Gas attack!”
A whitish wall of gas, fitfully illumined by the light of the rockets, was moving over Monchy. As a strong smell of chlorine was noticeable in our cavern, we lit fires of straw at the entrances. The acrid smoke nearly drove us out of our refuge, and we were forced to clear the air by waving coats and groundsheets.
Next morning we had the opportunity of marvelling at the effects of a gas attack. Nearly every green thing was withered, snails and moles lay dead on every side, and any despatch-riders’ horses that were in Monchy had water running from their mouths and eyes. The ammunition and the shell splinters that lay everywhere were covered with a beautiful green patina. Even Douchy, lying far to the rear, shared the effects of the gas-cloud. The civilians, who did not like it at all, assembled in front of Lieutenant-Colonel von Oppen’s quarters and asked for gas-masks. They were put on lorries and taken to places further in the rear.
We spent the next night in the quarry again. In the evening I got the message that we were to have coffee at 4:15, as an English deserter had declared that there was to be an attack at 5. And, in fact, I had scarcely been awakened by the return of the party sent for the coffee when the now familiar cry, “Gas attack!” rang out. There was a sickly smell of phosgene in the air, and the drumfire on the Monchy salient was terrific. It soon, however, died down.
A lively morning followed. Lieutenant Brecht emerged on the village street from communication trench No. 6 with a bloodstained bandage round one hand, accompanied by one of his men with fixed bayonet and an English prisoner. He was received in west headquarters, and told the following story:
The English had released gas- and smoke-screens at five, and at the same time smothered the trench with trench-mortar fire. The men as usual had left their cover before the firing stopped, and we had thirty killed. Then two strong raiding parties appeared out of the smoke. One of the two had forced their way into the trench and taken off a wounded N.C.O. The other was held up on the wire. The only one of them who got through was taken prisoner by Lieutenant Brecht, who had led a planter’s life in America before the war, and who seized him by the throat and shouted, “Come here, you son of a bitch!” This sole representative was now entertained with a glass of wine. With half-frightened, half-astonished eyes he looked up the village street that, deserted a moment ago, was now crowded with ration-parties, stretcher-bearers, despatch-carriers, and all whom curiosity could collect. The prisoner was a tall young fellow with yellow hair and the face of a child. “A pity,” thought I, as I looked at him, “to have to shoot such a fellow as that.”
Soon a long train of stretchers arrived at the dressing-station. From the South sector, too, there were many casualties, for in company sector E also a strong raiding party had got into the trench. About fifty stretchers on which lay groaning men with blood-soaked bandages were set down in front of some huts of corrugated iron. Inside, the doctor, with his sleeves rolled up, was busy at his job.
A young fellow, whose blue lips on a face as white as a sheet looked very bad, was muttering, “It’s all up. … I shan’t ever again … I’ve got … to … die.” A fat Medical Corps sergeant looked at him with pity, and to comfort him kept murmuring, “Now now, my boy, now now!”
Although the English had prepared for this minor attack, of which the chief object was to divert some of our reserves from the front of the Somme offensive, by numerous trench-mortar bombardments and gas attacks, they succeeded in taking only one wounded man prisoner, and they left a number of dead in front of our wire. Certainly, our losses also were considerable. The regiment that morning had forty killed, including three officers.
At noon of the next day
