I set out, and had only got as far as Nordhof when I met Captain von Brixen, commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, who had a sketch-map of the disposition of the troops ready to hand in his pocket. I took a copy of it, and with this my task was really completed. However, I went on all the same to the headquarters of the troops in the line, which I found in a concrete blockhouse, in order to make a personal reconnaissance.
On the way I passed great numbers of recent casualties. The white faces stared out of the brimming shell-holes or were already so mud-bespattered that the human face was scarcely recognizable. I was sorry to see the blue Gibraltar badge on most of them. The commanding officer was a Bavarian, Captain Radlmaier, a very energetic officer. He gave me full details of the position that Captain von Brixen had hastily told me of. Our 2nd Battalion had suffered heavy losses, among them the adjutant and the officer commanding the valiant 7th Company. The fate of the adjutant, Lieutenant Lemière, was particularly tragic, as his brother had been killed the April before at Fresnoy, in command of the 8th Company. Both brothers belonged to the principality of Liechtenstein, but they had joined the army out of enthusiasm for the cause of Germany. It is fatal for two sons to be in one regiment in wartime. We had four pairs of brothers among the officers of the regiment. Of these eight, five were killed, and two, one of whom was my brother, were severely wounded. I was the only one to come through in a fairly sound state. This little example shows the losses of the Fusiliers.
The captain pointed to a concrete post about two hundred metres in front of our line, which had been defended with particular heroism the day before. Shortly after the attack began, the commander of this little strong-point, a sergeant-major, saw an Englishman who was taking off three German prisoners. He shot the Englishman and added the three to the strength of his garrison—though it did not appear that he found in them an exactly heroic trio. When they had shot away their ammunition they tied an Englishman in front of the entrance as a peaceful signboard, and at dark succeeded after all in escaping unobserved.
Another strong-point, commanded by a lieutenant, was summoned to surrender. Instead of making an answer, the German leapt out and, seizing the English officer, dragged him inside before the eyes of his bewildered men.
That day, for the only time in the war, I saw small bodies of stretcher-bearers moving about in the open with the Red Cross flag without a shot being fired. Such a sight was unknown to the front-line soldier in this subterranean war except when matters were very desperate. Nevertheless, I heard later on that some of our stretcher-bearers had been shot by English snipers.
This fact may seem astounding, and yet I can explain it to myself. Weak natures are prone to the atavistic impulse to destroy; and it takes hold of the trench fighter in his desolate existence when anyone appears above ground. I have felt it myself only too often.
I had an unpleasant time on my way back owing to the irritant gas of the English shells. The ground was saturated with it. It smelt of rotten apples and made the eyes run. After making my report to headquarters I met two stretchers just outside the dressing-station at Kalve. On each, severely wounded, was an officer whom I knew well. One was Lieutenant Zürn, in whose honour we had made a night of it only two evenings before. Now he lay half-undressed on a door. His face had that hint of yellow which is the certain precursor of death, and he looked at me with fixed eyes when I went up to take his hand. The other, Lieutenant Haverkamp, had the bones of a leg and an arm so shattered by a shell that an amputation was extremely probable. He was as white as death, and he lay on his stretcher with his features heroically set, smoking a cigarette.
Our losses in young officers were again frightfully heavy during these days. Every time afterwards that I heard prejudice and depreciation on the lips of the mob, I thought of these men who saw it out to the bitter end with so little parade and with so fine an ardour. But after all—what is the mob? It sees in everything nothing but the reflection of its own manners. It is quite clear to me that these men were our best. However cleverly people may talk and write, there is nothing to set against self-sacrifice that is not pale, insipid, and miserable.
On the 3rd of November we entrained at Gits, whose situation was familiar to us from our earliest Flanders days. We found that the two Flemish girls had lost their old freshness. They, too, seemed to have lived through days of battle in the meantime.
Next, we were for some days in rest at Tourcoing, an imposing sister-city of Lille. For the first time and the last during the war, every man of the 7th Company slept on a featherbed. I occupied a magnificently furnished room in the house of an industrial magnate in the Rue de Lille. The first evening, with an open fire, the indispensable marble mantelpiece, and an armchair, was unspeakably delightful.
The few days were passed by everybody in enjoying life that had been so hardly won. It was still scarcely believable that death had been escaped, and it seemed a necessity to assure oneself of it by enjoying life in every aspect.
The Battle of Cambrai
The delightful days at Tourcoing were soon over. For a short while longer we were at Villers-au-Tertre, where we were made up to strength by new drafts, and then we went by train on the 15th November
