On my way back I stopped beside Captain von Brixen, who, with a few of the men, was engaged in a duel with a row of heads sticking up out of a trench running parallel and not far away. I stood between him and another and marked where the bullets struck.
Of a sudden I was again flung down into the trench by a blow on the forehead and my eyes were blinded with blood. The man beside me fell at the same moment and began to cry out. He was shot in the temple through his helmet. Captain von Brixen was afraid he had lost a second company commander in one day. However, there was nothing to be found, on a closer inspection, except two flesh wounds on the edge of my hair, caused, presumably, by the bursting bullet or by a splinter from the wounded man’s helmet.
The fresh loss of blood weakened me; so I agreed to return with Captain von Brixen to his headquarters. We passed the edge of Mœuvres village at the double on account of the heavy shelling, and arrived safely at the dugout in the bed of the canal. There I was dressed and injected against tetanus.
In the afternoon I got on to a lorry and went to Lécluse, and there dined with Colonel von Oppen, who received my report with enthusiasm. After I had emptied my bottle of wine, in excellent spirits though half asleep, I took my leave. My trusty Vinke, whose face beamed with joy, had a bed ready for me, and I flung myself into it with a holiday feeling after this tremendous day. On the next day but one the battalion was taken out and came to Lécluse. On the 4th December the divisional commander, Major-General von Busse, addressed the battalions concerned, and mentioned with particular emphasis the services performed by the 7th Company.
I had reason to be proud of my men. A bare eighty of them had taken a long stretch of trench, besides a large quantity of machine-guns, mortars, and war material, and 200 prisoners. Unhappily we, too, had a casualty list of fifty percent, in which was a large proportion of officers and N.C.O.s I had the pleasure of announcing a large number of promotions and decorations. Lieutenant Hoppenrath, leader of the storm troops, Fähnrich Neupert, the stormer of the pillbox, and also the courageous defender of the block, Kimpenhaus, were given the Iron Cross of the 1st class for their distinguished conduct in the field. As a plaster for my fifth wound I was given fourteen days’ Christmas leave, and in the course of it the Knight’s Cross of the House of Hohenzollern with swords was sent to me at home. The war ended by giving me peculiar views as to orders and decorations, and yet I confess I was proud to pin the enamel cross with the gold rim to my breast. This cross, my perforated helmet, and a silver cup inscribed “To the victor of Mœvres,” presented to me by the three other company commanders of the battalion, are my souvenirs of the battle of Cambrai.
At the Cojeul River
After a few days on rest we relieved the 10th Company in the front line on the 9th December. Our part of the line was in front of Vis-en-Artois, as I mentioned above. My company front was bounded on the right flank by the Arras-Cambrai road, on the left by the marshy bed of the Cojeul river, across which we kept touch with the neighbouring company by nightly patrols. The enemy’s lines were hidden from sight by a hill lying between the front lines. Apart from an occasional patrol messing about with our wire at night, and the hum of an electric-light engine set up in Hubert’s Farm not far off, we had no knowledge of the enemy. On the other hand, the frequent gas attacks were unpleasant and claimed many victims. They were carried out by means of hundreds of iron cylinders buried in the earth and discharged by electricity in a salvo of flame. As soon as the light showed, gas-alarm was given, and anyone who had not his mask on and the flap well tucked in found himself in a bad way. In many spots, too, the gas reached an almost absolute density, so that even the mask was useless, since there was literally no oxygen there to breathe. Consequently there were many casualties.
My dugout was in the steep wall of a gravel-pit behind the line, and was shelled nearly every day. Behind, the iron girders of a destroyed sugar-factory showed up in grotesque desolation.
The gravel-pit was an unholy spot. Among the shell-holes, filled with the refuse of war, the crosses of fallen trench-dwellers stuck up awry. At night I could not see my hand in front of my face, and had to stand still between Verey lights in case I fell off the duckboards into the marsh at the edge of the Cojeul.
I spent the days, when I was not busied over
