At the appointed time all the patrols, some of them already involved in bombing engagements, retreated towards the Somme. We were the last to cross the river, and then the bridges were blown up by an engineer detachment. The drumfire still raged away on our front, and it was some hours later when the first enemy patrols appeared on the Somme. We retired behind the Siegfried position, then still being constructed. The battalion was quartered in the village of Lehaucourt on the St. Quentin Canal. I occupied, with my batman, a comfortable little cottage where the household goods were still stored away in chests and cupboards. I should like to put on record, to show what sort of fellows ours were, that nothing I could say would induce my batman, the trusty Knigge, to make his bed in the warm sitting-room. He insisted all the time on sleeping in the cold kitchen. This attitude of reserve which is typical of the Lower Saxon made the relations between officer and men work very smoothly.
The first evening out on rest I invited a party of my fellow-officers to drink mulled wine spiced with all the spices left behind by the owner of the house; for our rearguard had earned the praise of all our superior officers, and fourteen days’ leave as well.
In the Village of Fresnoy
My leave, on which I went a few days later, was this time not curtailed. I find in my diary this brief but eloquent record: “Leave spent very happily. Need have no reproaches on that score after my death.” On the 9th April 1917 I returned to the 2nd Company, then quartered in the village of Merignies, not far from Douai. The pleasure of my return was dashed by an unexpected alarm which had for me the peculiarly unpleasant consequence that I had to ride the company charger to Beaumont. Through rain and sleet I rode at the head of the transport, that slipped all over the paved road, till we reached our destination at one in the morning.
When I had seen to my horse and the men as well as I could, I went in search of quarters for myself; but there was not an unoccupied corner to be found. At last a commissariat orderly had the excellent idea of offering me his bed, as he had to sit up for the telephone calls. While I was pulling off my boots and spurs he told me that the English had captured Vimy Ridge and a lot of ground from the Bavarians.
I could not help observing, in spite of his hospitality, that he was not at all pleased to find his quiet village headquarters turned into an assembly-point for the fighting troops.
The next morning the battalion marched in the direction of heavy firing to the village of Fresnoy. There I received orders to set up an observation post. I took a few men and explored the western outskirts of the village and found a cottage, in whose roof I had a lookout post made that commanded the front. We took the cellar as our dwelling-place, and in the course of making room there we came upon a sack of potatoes, a very welcome addition to our scanty provisions. My batman now roasted me potatoes every evening, with salt. Lieutenant Gornick also, like a true friend, sent me a large parcel of Leberwurst and some red wine. He had found them among the stores left behind in haste in Villerval, which had already been evacuated, but which Gornick was holding as an outpost with one platoon. I at once equipped an expedition furnished with perambulators and similar means of transport to secure this treasure. Unfortunately it returned empty-handed, as the English were already in full strength on the edge of the village. Gornick told me later that after the discovery of a large cellar of red wine a drinking bout had started, which, in spite of the attack then being made on the village, it had been extremely difficult to bring to a close.
On the 14th of April I was given the task of organizing an intelligence clearing-station in the village. For this purpose I had despatch-riders, bicyclists, telephone and light-signal stations, underground telegraph wires, carrier pigeons, and a chain of Verey-light posts placed at my disposal. I looked out a suitable cellar, with a deep dugout, and returned for the last time to my dwelling-place on the western edge of the village.
During the night I fancied I heard a crash now and then and shouts from my batman, but I was so dazed with sleep that I only murmured, “Oh, let them shoot!” and turned over, though the whole place was thick with dust. Next morning I was awakened by little Schultz, Colonel von Oppen’s nephew, who was shouting, “I say—don’t you know yet that your whole house has been blown to blazes?”
When I got up and surveyed the damage, I observed that a shell of the heaviest calibre had been planted on the roof, and that the observation post, indeed the whole house, was no more. If the velocity had only been a trifle slower the hit would have got us in the cellar and plastered the walls with us, so that in the nice
