Suddenly there was a commotion at the barricade. Bombs flew, rifles pinged, and machine-guns rattled. “They’re coming. They’re coming.” We jumped to our sandbags and fired away. One of my men, the volunteer Kimpenhaus, jumped on to the top of the block in the heat of the battle and fired into the trench till he fell severely wounded in both arms. I made a note of this hero of the hour, and had the pleasure, fourteen days later, of congratulating him on the Iron Cross of the 1st class.
We had scarcely gone back to lunch after this little interlude when a fresh heathenish alarm broke upon us. There followed one of those extraordinary episodes in which, great and small, the history of the war is so rich. A subaltern of the regiment on our left who had come to get into touch with us became inspired by a boundless pugnacity. It seemed that drink had inflamed his inborn courage to madness. “Where’s the Tommy? At the dogs! Who’s coming?” In his rage he pulled down our fine block and plunged on, clearing a road for himself with a roar of bombs. In front of him, through the trench, flitted his orderly, and finished off with his rifle those whom the bombs had spared.
When a man makes himself the stake with crazy daring his example is always infectious. We were all wrought up and, snatching up bombs, ran to take part in the improvised assault. I was soon up with the fellow, nor did the other officers, followed by most of the company, hang back. The C.O. himself, Captain von Brixen, was among the foremost. He had picked up a rifle, and he shot down several enemy bombers over our heads.
The English resisted valiantly. Every traverse was contested. Mills bombs and stick-bombs crossed and recrossed. Behind each we found dead or still quivering bodies. We killed each other out of sight; and there were losses on our side too. A bomb fell close to the orderly and burst before he could get clear. He fell with a dozen wounds, from which his blood trickled into the soil.
We sprang on over his body. Thunderous reports gave us our direction. Hundreds of eyes lay in wait in the desolation behind rifles and machine-guns. We were a long way in front of our own lines. Bullets whistled from all sides round our heads or landed with a hard smack on the edge of the trench. One had to have courage here, and everyone had; otherwise he would not have ventured on it. Each time that one of the egg-shaped bombs appeared the eye seized it with a precision only possible to a man whose life hangs on the issue. Then one threw a bomb oneself and jumped forward. Scarce a glance fell on the huddled body of the enemy. He was done for, and now a fresh duel began.
A trench branching off to the right was cleared by some men of the 225th Regiment who were following us. Caught between two fires, the English tried to escape across the open and were shot down like game at a “battue.”
Then came the climax. The enemy, hard pressed, and with us always on his heels, made ready to retire by a communication trench that turned away to the right. I jumped on to a fire-step and saw that this trench for a good stretch ran parallel to ours at a distance of only twenty metres. So the enemy had to pass by us once more. We could look right down on the helmets of the English, who stumbled over each other in their haste and excitement. I lobbed a bomb at the feet of the foremost. They started back and crowded on those behind. Now began an indescribable carnage. Bombs flew through the air like snowballs till the whole scene was veiled in white smoke. Two men handed me bombs ready to throw without a moment’s pause. Bombs flashed and exploded among the mob of English, throwing them aloft in fragments with their helmets. Cries of rage and terror were mingled. With the fire in our eyes we sprang with a shout over the top.
In the midst of this tumult I was struck to the earth by a terrific blow. Sobered, I tore off my helmet, and saw with horror two large holes in it. The N.C.O. Mohrmann, who sprang to my help, comforted me by the assurance that nothing was to be seen on the back of my head but a scratch. The shot of a far-distant rifle had pierced my helmet and grazed the skull. I was half-dazed and was forced to give way. With my head bound up I made my way out of the thick of the fight. I had scarcely passed the next traverse when a man ran up behind me and gasped out that Tebbe had been killed by a shot in the head at the very same spot.
This news finished me. I could scarcely realize that a friend with whom for years I had shared joy and sorrow and danger, and who had sung out a jest to me a few minutes before, had met his end from a senseless piece of lead. Unhappily it was too true.
All the leading N.C.O.s and a third of the company had fallen too in this murderous piece of trench; Lieutenant Hopf, also, an elderly man and a teacher by profession, a German “Ideal-Schulmeister” in the best sense of the word. My two Fähnrichs and many more were wounded. In spite of this the 7th Company held the trench they had gloriously won, and remained there under the command of Lieutenant Hoppenrath, the only officer left, until the relief of the battalion.
Even modern battle has its great moments.
