In less than a second all was confusion. I held my pistol against a face that shone out like a white mask in the darkness. A shadow squeezed backwards into the wire and cried out. Close to me on my left Wohlgemut fired his revolver, while the volunteer, Bartels, in the excitement of the moment blindly slung a bomb into the midst of us.
At the first shot the magazine of my revolver dropped out, and I stood shouting at an Englishman who squeezed himself in horror closer and closer against the barbed wire. Again and again I pressed the trigger, but not a shot rang out. It was a nightmare. There was now a tumult in the trench. Shouts were followed by the rattle of a Lewis gun. We jumped back. I took cover in a shell-hole and turned my revolver on a shadow behind me. This time it was lucky I could not fire, for it was Birkner behind me, though I thought he had long since got back.
After this we made a dash for our own trench, but in front of our wire the bullets came so thick that I had to jump into a crater full of water and laced over with wire. Swinging on a barbed hammock over the face of the waters, I listened with mixed feelings to the dense hail of bullets sweeping past, while bits of wire and splinters plunged into the lip of the crater. After half an hour, when the firing had died down, I worked my way over our entanglements and jumped into the trench, where a joyful welcome was ready for me. Wohlgemut and Bartels were there already, and after another half-hour Birkner turned up too. There was general rejoicing over our lucky escape. The only regret was that a prisoner had again slipped through our fingers. When I lay down on the bed-boards in the dugout I realized that my nerves had been touched. My teeth were chattering, and, exhausted though I was, I could not sleep. Next morning I could scarcely walk. I had torn one knee on the wire, and the other had a splinter in it from the bomb Bartels had chucked at me.
These brief and sporting interludes were, all the same, a good tonic for the nerves and a relief from the monotony of trench life.
On the 11th of August a black horse was galloping to and fro behind the English lines in front of Berles-au-Bois. A Landwehrsman brought it down with three shots. The English officer from whom it had run away must have made a very sorry face at this sight. During the night the case of a rifle bullet hit Fusilier S⸺ in the eye.
In the village, too, the casualties were more and more frequent. The walls were levelled by artillery fire, and there was less and less cover against the random bursts of machine-gun fire. We began to connect up the village with trenches and to build up the walls at the most dangerous spots.
The 12th of August was the long-desired day when I got my second leave. However, I had scarcely got home and made myself comfortable when a telegram came after me: “Return immediately. Further orders from the town-major, Cambrai.
”
Three hours later I was sitting in the train. On the way to the station I met three girls in light summer dresses, with tennis-rackets in their hands, laughing as they went. It was a brilliant farewell life gave me, and one that I often thought of when I was back in the line.
On the 21st I was once more in the well-known neighbourhood. The roads, owing to the departure of the 111th Division and the arrival of the new one, were thronged with troops. The 1st Battalion lay in Ecoust-St.-Mein, which we stormed two years later. I spent the night in the attic of an empty house with eight other officers.
In the evening we sat up a long while drinking coffee that two Frenchwomen made for us in a neighbouring house. It was the strongest drink we could procure. We knew that we were on the verge this time of a battle such as the world had never seen. Soon our excited talk rose to a pitch that would have rejoiced the hearts of any freebooters, or of Frederick’s Grenadiers. A few days later there were very few of that party still alive.
Guillemont
On the 23rd August we were transported in lorries to Le Mesnil. Our spirits were excellent, though we knew we were going to be put in where the battle of the Somme was at its worst. Chaff and laughter went from lorry to lorry. We marched from Le Mesnil at dusk to Sailly-Saillisel, and here the battalion dumped packs in a large meadow and paraded in battle order.
Artillery fire of a hitherto unimagined intensity rolled and thundered on our front. Thousands of twitching flashes turned the western horizon into a sea of flowers. All the while the wounded came trailing back with white dejected faces, huddled into the ditches by the gun and ammunition columns that rattled past.
A man in a steel helmet reported to me as guide to conduct my platoon to the renowned Combles, where for the time we were
