If these lines are read by anyone belonging to the 1st Hariana Lancers I wish to express to him in this place my respect for a body of men who could claim as their commander such a one as he whom I had the honour to fight.
What does Nietzsche say of fighting men? “You must have as enemies only those whom you hate, but not those whom you despise. You must be proud of your enemy, and then the enemy’s success is your success also.”
The next evening I had orders again to occupy the outpost. It was impossible to occupy it by day, as it was in full view of the enemy. Kius and I with fifty men took each a side of the wood and met at the steep bank. There was nothing to be seen or heard of the enemy except that there was a shout and a Verey light and a shot from the sunken road which Sergeant-major Hackmann and I had reconnoitred. We marked this unwary individual down for our next expedition.
At the spot where we had beaten off the flank attack the night before were lying three dead. Two of them were Indians, and one a white officer with two gold stars on his shoulder-straps: a lieutenant, therefore. He had been shot in the eye. The bullet went out through the opposite temple and had smashed the rim of his steel helmet—which is now among my collection of sinister trophies. His right hand still grasped the club, stained with his own blood; his left a large Colt six-shooter. There were only two live cartridges left in the magazine.
The men plundered the fallen. I have always hated the sight; all the same, I did not interfere. What they took was otherwise doomed to waste away, and aesthetic or moral considerations seemed to me to be out of place in this dark meadow-ground over which all the callous relentlessness of war still brooded.
During the following days several more dead bodies were found in the undergrowth of the wood; this showed how heavy the enemy’s losses had been, and made the outpost a rather unpleasant place to be in. As I was working my way alone through a thicket I heard a peculiar hissing and murmuring sound. I went nearer and came upon two corpses in which the heat had awakened a ghastly life.
On the 18th June the outpost was again attacked. This time the affair did not go off so well. The men broke and could not be rallied again. One, a N.C.O., Erdelt, jumped straight off the bank in the confusion. He rolled down and landed at the bottom among a party of Indians in ambush. He threw bombs, but was soon caught by the throat by an Indian officer and scourged in the face with a wire whip. His watch was taken from him and he was pushed and thumped and marched off by his captors. However, he managed to escape when the Indians threw themselves down on account of our machine-gun fire. After long wanderings behind the enemy’s front he regained our lines, with thick weals across his face.
On the evening of the 18th June I went on patrol with little Schultz, ten men, and a light machine-gun. We set out from the outpost, now becoming by degrees somewhat oppressive, with the aim of paying the post that had lately made itself so obvious in the sunken road the honour of a visit. Schultz went with his party to the right of the sunken road, I to the left, with the understanding that if either party were fired on the other should run to its help. We worked our way forward on hands and knees through grass and thickets of broom, pausing now and then to listen.
Suddenly came the sharp rattle of a rifle-bolt. We sank into the ground. Every old hand knows the series of feelings that occupied the next seconds. For the moment one has lost the initiative and must wait and see what the enemy does next.
A shot broke the oppressive stillness. I lay behind a broom-bush and waited. On my right someone threw bombs into the sunken road.
At once a whole line of fire flashed out in front of us. The sickening sharpness of the report showed that the fire came from only a few yards ahead of us, and, seeing that we had stumbled into too hot a corner, I gave the word to run for it. We all sprang up and sprinted for all we were worth, while rifle-fire was opened on us from our left as well. I gave up all hope of a safe return when I heard this unholy clatter. Unconsciously, I was in constant expectation of being hit. Death was out hunting.
Somewhere near us a detachment advanced to the attack with a shrill hurrah. Little Schultz confessed to me afterwards that he imagined a lean Indian behind him wielding a knife and already clutching him tight by the neck.
I tumbled once and brought down the N.C.O. Teilengerdes over on top of me. I lost my steel helmet, revolver, and bombs. Anything to get on! At last we reached the protecting bank and tore down it. Lieutenant Schultz reached it at the same time with his men. He announced quite out of breath that anyway he had paid out the cheeky post with bombs. Just after two men came in carrying Fusilier F⸺, who was wounded in both legs. All the rest were unwounded.
The worst misfortune was that the man who had carried the machine-gun, a recruit, had fallen over the wounded man and left the thing behind. While we were holding a brief council of war and planning a second expedition, the artillery began firing. I was reminded very precisely of the night of the 12th, for this time too there was a hopeless stampede. I found myself alone on the bank with the wounded man, who, dragging himself forward
