At night, in that mood of foreboding known to soldiers of every time, I sat a long while on the stump of a tree overgrown with blue anemones, before I crept over the others to my bed in the tent; and that night I had a confused dream in which a death’s-head played the leading part. Priepke, to whom I told it in the morning, hoped the skull was a French one.
Les Eparges
The young green of the woods shone in the morning light. We went by concealed ways to a narrow gorge behind the front line. It had been given out that the 76th Regiment was attacking after twenty minutes’ artillery preparation, and that we were to stand by in reserve.
Precisely at twelve noon our artillery began a violent bombardment that echoed and reechoed through the forest gorges. It was here we understood for the first time that dreaded word, “drumfire.” We sat on our knapsacks and waited in suspense. An orderly dashed up to the company commander. Hurried words. “The three first lines are in our hands. Six guns captured.” We broke into a cheer and the spirit of the offensive woke in us.
At last came the longed-for orders and we moved off in file in the direction of the faint crackling of rifle-fire. It was war.
Beside the path in a dense plantation of firs there were dull crumps, and earth and twigs came showering down. The laughter was a trifle forced when one of us, overcome by his nerves, flung himself on the ground. Then the warning cry of death came flitting along the ranks from in front, “Stretcher forward!”
Soon we passed the point where we had broken through. The wounded had already been sent back. Bloodstained fragments of equipment and flesh were caught on the bushes all round … a strange and oppressive sight that made me think of the red-backed shrike that spits its prey on the thorns.
The Grande Tranchée was full of troops hastening forward. Wounded men implored water and cowered against the wall of the trench, prisoners carrying stretchers went panting rearwards, chargers careered madly through the fire. On every side shells churned the soft ground. Heavy branches fell to earth. Right in our way lay a dead horse with gaping wounds and, beside it, smoking entrails. A bearded Landwehrsman leaned against a tree. “Boys, now for it. The French are on the run.”
We were in the battle-tossed empire of the infantry. In a circle all round the breakthrough, the artillery fire had made a clean sweep of the trees. On the tortured ground lay the dead and dying that the attack had cost us, their faces towards the enemy and their grey coats scarcely visible against the ground. A gigantic fellow whose red beard was smeared with blood stared into the sky, his fingers clutching the loose soil. Another, younger, lying in a shell-hole, stirred and turned over. The sallowness of death was already on his face. He did not seem to like our looking at him. With a listless movement he drew his cloak over his head and lay still.
From here we went on in file. Shells were screaming over all the time. Where they struck there was a flash and the soil of the clearing was whirled aloft. “Stretcher-bearers!” We had our first casualty. A shrapnel bullet had severed Fusilier Stoller’s carotid artery. Three bandages were saturated instantly, and within a few seconds he had bled to death. Near by were two guns that could not keep quiet and drew on us even heavier fire. A gunner lieutenant, who was looking for wounded, was knocked over in a column of smoke that went up at his feet. He picked himself up with marked composure and came slowly back. We were greatly impressed.
It was getting dusk when orders came to advance. We went by an endless communication trench through thick undergrowth much wrecked and torn by shellfire. The trench was strewn with kit and equipment thrown down by the flying French. Near Les Eparges we had to dig ourselves in in rocky ground, for there were no other troops in front of us. At last I sank down into a bush and fell asleep. Often as I dozed I could see high overhead the shells of some artillery or other describe their ellipses in a train of sparks.
“Here, get up, you! We’re moving forward.” I woke on grass wet with dew. As we were swept with machine-gun fire, we made haste back into our communication trench again and took possession of an abandoned French position on the outskirts of the forest. My attention was caught by a sickly smell and a bundle hanging on the wire. Jumping out of the trench in the early morning mist, I found myself in front of a huddled-up corpse, a Frenchman. The putrid flesh, like the flesh of fishes, gleamed greenish-white through the rents in the uniform. I turned away and then started back in horror: close to me a figure cowered beside a tree. It wore the shining straps and belt of the French, and high upon its back there was still the loaded pack, crowned with a round cooking utensil. Empty eye-sockets and the few wisps of hair on the black and weathered skull told me that this was no living man. Another sat with the upper part of the body clapped down over the legs as though broken through the middle. All round lay dozens of corpses, putrefied, calcined, mummified, fixed in a ghastly dance of death. The French must have carried on for months without burying their fallen comrades.
Before midday the sun broke through the mist and sent out a pleasing warmth. After I had slept for a bit on the floor of the trench I walked along its deserted bays. Taken by the attack of the day before, it was heaped
