It was odd to feel that our apparently confused doings in the depth of night had won a place in history. The enemy offensive, launched with such tremendous force, had been brought to a standstill, and we had had a large share in that result.
Soon we tured in in the hayloft. In spite of the profound sleep in which they were sunk, most of the sleepers tossed to and fro in their dreams, as though they had to fight their Flanders battle over again.
On the 3rd of August we set off on the march to the station of the neighbouring town of Gits. We took much of the cattle and produce of the now deserted neighbourhood with us. The whole battalion, in fine spirits again, shrunken though it was, had coffee in the station restaurant. Two buxom Flemish waitresses added to its flavour and to the general contentment by their bold speeches. The men were particularly delighted when they addressed everyone, officers included, as “thou,” as it is the local custom to do.
A few days later I had a letter from my brother in hospital in Gelsenkirchen. He wrote that he was booked for a stiff arm and a shaky lung.
I take the following pages from his diary. They fill in my own account and give a vivid picture of the impressions made on a young boy who was thrown into the hurricane of modern battle:—
“ ‘… Fall in for the attack!’ The face of my platoon commander, Sergeant-major Schnell, looked in over the entrance of the little hole covered with branches and boards where we had lain for hours smoking and eating. The three men near me stopped their talk and jumped up cursing. I got up and put on my equipment, set my helmet tight on my head, and went out into the dusk. It was misty and chilly. The scene had altered meanwhile. The shellfire had moved off and now thundered on other parts of the immense battlefield. Aeroplanes roared through the air and calmed one’s anxiously peering eyes with their large iron crosses.
“I went once more to a spring which was still wonderfully clear in spite of the wreckage and rubbish, and drawing up the bucket I drank, and filled my water-bottle.
“The company fell in by platoons. I quickly stuck four bombs in my belt and went to my section, from which two men were missing. I had scarcely time to write down their names before we moved off. The platoons proceeded in single file over the shell-holes, skirting bits of timber, squeezing against hedges, sinking into holes, and making their way with much clatter and rattle to attack the enemy.
“I knew what my task was. The 2nd Battalion of our regiment and a battalion of another on our flank had orders to drive some English detachments, which had pushed on over the canal, back to the other side again. My orders were to take up a position in advance with my section and to lie down in readiness to open the counterattack. While I was going over this again, I happened to see the pale, set face of a young N.C.O. ‘Bachmann,’ I thought, although I did not know him. It was my comrade, a Fahnenjunker likewise in Sandvoss’s company. I lost sight of him, and looked with astonishment at the scene that had suddenly unfolded.
“The remains of a large wood, black, branchless, and splintered stumps, stuck up in isolation here and there from the scarred Flanders plain. Immense swathes of smoke drifted through the air and hung the sky with a gloomy, heavy pall. Stinking gases, yellow and brown, hung and swayed heavily to and fro over the earth that the shells tore up so mercilessly again and again.
“The order was given to be ready for gas. At this moment a terrific fire came on us like a fit. The soil flew up in fountains and a hail of splinters swept the ground like a shower of rain. For a moment everyone stood dazed. Then all broke away like mad. I heard our commanding officer, Captain Böckelmann, bellowing out something, but I could understand nothing.
“My men had vanished and I found myself in another platoon. I pressed on with the rest to the wreckage of a village that the shells had razed relentlessly to the very foundations. We pulled out our masks.
“Without a moment’s warning we were in a terrific machine-gun barrage. Everyone threw himself down. Near me on my left Lieutenant Ehlers was kneeling up, and near him lay a N.C.O. keeping a lookout. In front there was a yellow, flashing wall of fire. Burst followed burst. Fragments of masonry, showers of soil, brickbats, and splinters rained down on us and struck sparks from our helmets. I stared into this glaring witch’s cauldron.
“Compared to this, what was the half-hour’s drumfire that had prepared for this ill-fated attack? For it was as clear to me as a vision that it had failed. Thrice at short intervals a tremendous crash swept through the uproar. Whole rubbish-heaps took the air at once, whirled around and pelted down again with hellish clatter.
“I looked to my right. Ehlers was shouting something. He raised his left hand, beckoned over his shoulder, and with a shout sprang forward. I got up heavily and followed at the double. My feet were burning like fire after the night before, but my socks had soaked up the blood and the pain was not so sharp.
“I had not gone twenty steps when the flash of a shrapnel blinded me as I struggled up out of a shell-hole. It burst not ten paces in front of me at a height of three metres. I felt two dull blows against my chest and shoulder. My rifle flew from my hands of its own accord and fell backwards into the shell-hole. I could still hear remotely Ehlers shouting as he went by, ‘It’s finished him.’ He was not to live out another day. The attack
