Well, why don’t you jump up and rush into the night till you collapse in safety behind a bush like an exhausted animal? Why do you hang on there all the time, you and your braves? There are no superior officers to see you.
Yet someone watches you. Unknown perhaps to yourself, there is someone within you who keeps you to your post by the power of two mighty spells: Duty and Honour. You know that this is your place in the battle, and that a whole people relies on you to do your job. You feel, “If I leave my post, I am a coward in my own eyes, a wretch who will ever after blush at every word of praise.” You clench your teeth and stay.
All of us held on that evening, all who lay along that dark Flanders road. Officers and men alike showed what they were made of. Duty and Honour must be the cornerstones of every army. And a heightened sense of duty and honour must be inculcated in the officer who fights in the forefront of the battle. For that, suitable material and a fixed mould are required. The truth of this is fully known only in war. …
It began to drizzle after midnight; patrols of a regiment which had come up meanwhile in support went forward as far as the Steenbeek and found nothing but mud-filled shell-holes. The enemy had withdrawn beyond the stream.
Worn out by the fatigues of this tremendous day, we got down into our holes, with the exception of the men on guard. I pulled the cloak of my dead neighbour over my head and fell into a restless sleep. As it grew light I was awakened by a curiously cold feeling and discovered that I was in a sad way. It was raining in torrents and the drainage of the road was pouring into the hole where I was sitting. I built a small dam and bailed out my resting-place with a saucepan-lid. In consequence of the ever-increasing volume of water I had to add one course after another to my earthwork, till at last faulty construction yielded to growing weight and a muddy stream gurgled in and filled my refuge to the brim. While I was busy fishing out my revolver and helmet, tobacco and rations were borne away along the ditch, whose other occupants were faring just as I was. We stood shivering with cold and without a dry stitch on our bodies, knowing that when next we were shelled we had no protection whatever. It was a cheerful situation. And here I permit myself the observation that even artillery fire does not break the resistance of troops so surely as wet and cold.
The steady downpour was nevertheless a true blessing in its effects upon the further course of the battle; for the English offensive was just in its first and most critical days. The enemy had to bring up his artillery over a morass of waterlogged shell-holes, while we had undamaged roads for the transport of all we needed.
At eleven in the morning, when we were already desperate, an angel appeared in the person of a despatch-rider who brought the order for the regiment to assemble in Koekuit.
We saw on the way how difficult communications must have been on the day of the attack. The roads were packed with men and horses. Twelve horribly mutilated horses lay in one heap near some limbers whose wreckage was scarcely recognizable.
What was left of the regiment assembled in a rain-soaked meadow over which single bursts of shrapnel opened their white balls. It was a shock to see what was left—a body of about the strength of a company with a small group of officers in the midst. What losses! Of two battalions, nearly all the officers and men! The survivors stood in pouring rain with gloomy faces till quarters were assigned. Then we dried ourselves in a wooden hut, crowding round a glowing stove, and got fresh courage from a hearty meal. Human nature is indeed indestructible.
Towards evening shells fell in the village. One of the huts was hit and several men of the 3rd Company killed. In spite of the shelling we soon lay down to sleep, only hoping that we should not have to counterattack in the rain or be flung without warning into some gap in the line.
At three in the morning orders came that we were definitely to be taken out of the line. We marched along the pavé to Staden. It was strewn all the way with dead bodies and smashed-up transport. Twelve dead lay round the crater of one gigantic burst alone. Staden, that had been so full of life on our arrival, now had many houses shelled; the deserted marketplace heaped up with household goods hurriedly taken out of the houses. One family was leaving the town at the same time as we were. It led a cow as its only possession. The man had a wooden leg, and the woman led the crying children by the hand. The confused din behind added to the sadness of the picture.
The remains of the 2nd Battalion were quartered in a lonely farm, concealed behind tall hedges in the midst of luxuriant fields. There I was given command of the 7th Company. Till the end of the war its fortune and mine were one.
In the evening we sat before an old tiled hearth and refreshed ourselves with a stiff grog while we listened to the thunder of battle breaking out afresh. A sentence from the army communiqué suddenly met my eyes in a recent newspaper: “We succeeded in holding up the attack
