And now, just as my posts had gone out, appeared Sergeant-major Hackmann with a few men of the 7th Company, just about to go on patrol. I attached myself to them as camp-follower, though I had no business to leave my post.
Using a method of advance invented by myself, we crossed two entanglements that barred our way and got over the crest of the hill without, to our surprise, having run into a single outpost. We could now hear English working parties to right and to left of us. It was clear to me after the event that the enemy had withdrawn his own posts so as not to involve them in the fire which, as I shall shortly explain, he was about to open on ours.
My method of advance, mentioned just now, consisted in this, that over ground in which we might at any moment run up against the enemy each member of the patrol crept forward in turn. In this way, only one man at a time exposed himself to the risk of being shot from an ambush, while the rest, in a body behind, lay in readiness to attack. Naturally I took care to take my turn as leader, although my mere presence with the patrol was bad enough in itself. An officer in the front line has often to put himself technically in the wrong from considerations of a personal kind.
We stalked several working parties that, unfortunately, were separated from us by dense entanglements. The somewhat eccentric sergeant-major suggested giving himself up as a deserter and holding the enemy in parley until we had surrounded the first post. This plan was turned down after a brief discussion, and we crept back, disappointed, to the outpost.
There I sat down on the edge of the steep bank on my cloak, and, lighting a pipe as cautiously as possible, I gave rein to my thoughts. In the midst of the most beautiful castle in the air, I was suddenly alarmed by a peculiar rustling in the wood and the meadow. In the face of the enemy the senses are always on the lookout; and it is remarkable that, at such moments, quite ordinary sounds can give one the instant conviction, “Something is up!”
At the same instant the nearest post came up to me: “Sir, there are seventy Englishmen advancing to the edge of the wood.”
I was rather surprised by the numerical precision, but for the sake of prudence I hid myself, with the four men nearest me, on the edge of the bank in the long grass, in order to observe how matters developed. After a few seconds I saw a body of men gliding over the meadow. While the men covered them with their rifles I called out softly, “Who goes there?” It was Teilengerdes, a N.C.O., an old veteran of the 2nd Company, who was trying to collect his agitated section.
I at once got them all in hand and formed them in line, with one flank on the wood and the other on the bank. In a moment, bayonets were fixed. When I was giving them directions and told a man who hung back to dress up with the rest, “I am a stretcher-bearer,” was the answer. The fellow had his drill well in his head. Comforted by this triumph of Prussian discipline, I gave the word to advance.
While we were crossing the strip of meadow, a hail of shrapnel and a wild clatter of machine-gun fire began from the English side. We broke, against our wills, into a double, so as to reach the cover of the shoulder of the hill that lay to our front.
Suddenly a dark shadow rose in front of me. I seized a bomb and threw it. To my horror I saw in the flash of the explosions that it was the N.C.O. Teilengerdes, who had got in front unobserved and had just been tripped up by a wire. Fortunately he was not hurt. At the same time we heard the sharper explosion of English bombs not far off, and the shrapnel fire increased to an unpleasant intensity.
My firing-line broke and disappeared in the direction of the steep bank, which was under heavy fire. I with Teilengerdes and three more of the right sort stood my ground. Suddenly one of them rushed up to me: “The English!”
Like a vision engraved for one second on my eyes I saw a double row of kneeling figures, at that moment, getting up and advancing over the meadow, which was lit up only by an occasional flash. I could clearly distinguish the figure of an officer on the right flank. Friend and foe were as though paralysed by this abrupt and unexpected encounter. Then we did the one thing left us to do—turned and made off before the enemy recovered sufficiently to fire a shot. We jumped up and ran back to the bank. Though I tripped and fell over a treacherous wire stretched through the tall grass, I got back without further misadventure. The men were there, but they were in a state of great agitation, and it cost me all my energy to get them into line, even elbow to elbow.
I have always observed that the ordinary man whose sole preoccupation is his own danger is surprised by what seems to him an undivided attention to the matter in hand on the part of the officer in command, who among a thousand and one unnerving incidents of battle yet keeps his eye fixed upon the execution of his duty. This surprise makes an officer excel himself and spurs him on to always greater achievements. In this way officers and men call out energies in each other which would otherwise lie dormant. Indeed the moral factor is everything.
The enemy fire ceased of a sudden, and at the same time crackling and rustling sounds were heard in the undergrowth of the wood.
“Halt! Who goes there? Password.”
We kept on
