On the 10th September I went from the reserve camp to regimental headquarters to ask for leave. “I have been thinking of you,” was Colonel von Oppen’s reply; “however, the regiment has to make a raid in force and you are to lead it. Look out the best men and get them into training down in Soulœuvre camp.”
We were to enter the enemy’s trench at two points and endeavour to bring prisoners back. The patrol was in three parties, two for the attack and one to occupy the front line and cover our rear. I led the left party, Lieutenant von Kienitz the right. The men were all volunteers, and a few who were not required nearly wept when I left them out. My party, myself included, consisted of fourteen men, and among them were the Fähnrich Zglinitzky, the N.C.O.s Kloppmann, Mevius, and Dujesiefken, and two pioneers. The most reckless fellows of the 2nd Battalion found themselves united.
We trained ourselves in bomb-throwing for ten days, and carried out our enterprise against a carefully-built model of the strong-point we were to raid. It was a wonder, considering the excessive zeal of the men, that I had only two wounded with bomb-splinters before the event. For the rest, we were excused all duty; so that when on the afternoon of the 22nd September we proceeded to the second line, where we were to spend the night, I found myself in command of a somewhat wild but very useful band.
In the evening von Kienitz and I made our way through the dark forest to regimental headquarters. We had been invited to a farewell dinner by the commanding officer of the battalion, Captain Schumacher. After that we lay down to sleep in our deep dugout. It is a peculiar feeling when, knowing that next morning you have a fight to the death to go through, you give yourself a last audience before you fall asleep.
We were awakened at three, and we got up and washed and had breakfast made for us. I got into a temper at once because my batman had over-salted and so ruined the poached eggs I had treated myself to, both in honour of the day and for my own support.
We pushed back our plates and went through for the hundredth time every detail and contingency. At intervals we offered each other cherry-brandies, and von Kienitz gave us the benefit of several time-honoured jokes. At twenty minutes to five we got the men together and led them to the jumping-off places in the front line. Gaps in the wire had been cut, and long arrows, whitened with lime, pointed to our objectives. We separated with a shake of the hand and waited for what should come next.
I was in full array: two sandbags in front of my chest, each with four stick bombs, the left-hand one having instantaneous, the right-hand with time fuses; in the right-hand pocket of my tunic I had an .08 revolver on a long cord; in my right trouser pocket a small Mauser pistol; in my left tunic pocket five egg bombs; in the left trouser pocket a phosphorescent compass and a policeman’s whistle; in my belt spring hooks for pulling out the bomb pins, a dagger, and wire-cutters. There was a pocketbook in my breast pocket and my home address, and in the pocket of the back of my tunic a flat flask of cherry-brandy.
We had taken off our shoulder-straps and Gibraltar badges so that the enemy should have no information as to our unit. We wore a white band round each arm so as to know each other.
Four minutes before five the division on our left opened fire as a blind. Exactly at five our artillery and trench mortars suddenly opened out. I was standing with Kloppmann in front of the dugout entrance and smoking a last cigar; we had to take cover, however, as many of the shells fell short. Watch in hand we counted the minutes.
Exactly at 5:05 we left the dugouts and made for the prepared gaps in our wire. I ran forward, holding a bomb aloft, and in the half-light I saw the right-hand party rushing on to the attack.
The enemy wire was poor and I jumped over it in two bounds; but I fell over a trip wire behind it and tumbled into a shell-hole. Kloppmann and Mevius pulled me out.
“In!” We jumped into the front line without meeting opposition, while from our right came the sounds of a bombing engagement. Without worrying about that we crossed by the sandbag barricade that blocked the next trench, and jumped from shell-hole to shell-hole till we came to a double row of “knife-rests” that separated us from the second line. As this trench was in a state of confusion and gave no hope of prisoners, we hurried on without pausing down a communication trench. It was blocked, so I next sent the pioneers forward to clear the way, but time being short I took the lead myself.
At the junction of the third line the red glow of a cigarette-end fell to the ground in front of me. I gave the men a signal, grasped my bomb tighter, and crept warily along the well-built trench, against whose walls leaned any number of abandoned rifles. At such a moment the memory unconsciously fastens upon the most trifling objects, and now the sight of a saucepan with a spoon in it where the two trenches crossed was imprinted on my mind. To this fact I owed my life twenty minutes later.
Suddenly we saw shadowy figures disappear in front of us. We ran after them and came to a sandbagged sap in whose wall was the mouth of a dugout. I went forward and shouted “Montez!” A bomb was the only answer. Apparently it was one with a time fuse.
