the advance from mons (extract)
by walter bloem
SATURDAY. Already a week had gone by since we marched out of barracks at Frankfurt. A week of manoeuvres. But now all that was at an end, and with a rough jerk we were suddenly to find ourselves among all the abominable horrors of war. No sooner had we begun the day’s march than we saw the first traces of the monster we were going to meet. Every fifty yards the Belgians had dug trenches across the road. They had since been filled in, of course, but the marks were there of this childish, futile effort to hold up our advance. Also the fine trees all along on either side had been felled across the road by these deluded peasants; obstacles that our engineers must have just laughed at. And there, by the roadside, lay the first dead horse we’d seen, its black carcass all swollen up, and from its mouth hung an unpleasant mass of congealed blood, teeming with flies.
The road now ran along a high ridge, and we overlooked the hilly country at the north-eastern end of the province of Liege. Belgium, a free, bright, and happy country, full of delightful memories for me during many visits, and now-the enemy’s country. Incredible ! To our right lay the prosperous village of Clermont, apparently unchanged, but in front, on the crest of a rise in the road, was the outline of another village with quite a different aspect.
The church tower seemed to have no spire, an unusual thing in these parts, and in front of it was a queer jagged row of houses; at a distance it all looked strangely empty and most mysterious.
Just before reaching it there was a long halt, during which the artillery came forward and took their places in battle-order in the column. First came the light batteries of Regiment No. 54, my company being detailed as an escort and put in between the two brigades; then the heavy artillery clattered by, drawn by enormous horses, snorting and champing as they passed.
Looking ahead and looking back the column stretched out of sight in both directions like some gigantic snake threading its way through the countryside. The division was now complete with all arms up to war strength-a mighty stream of men of which I and my company formed a very small part.
The column moved on again and into the mysterious village, called Battice on the map. As we approached, the reason for its strange aspect became apparent; it was burnt out, completely gutted. Marching along the streets one could see through the frameless window-openings into the interior of the rooms with their roasted remnants of iron bedsteads and furnishings, and broken bits of household utensils of every kind lay scattered about the street. Except for dogs and cats, scavenging among the ruins, all sign of life had been extinguished by the fire. In the market square stood the roofless, spireless church.
And as I passed on through this devastated village, riding at the head of my field-grey cohort with the guns rattling along in front of me, I was staggered by this first, horrible vision of the red-hot passion of war, and I said to myself: This simply can’t be true. You are imagining it all. You are reading some mediaeval, heroic saga of barbaric times, and this procession of hideous pictures is being conjured up by your too vivid imagination as the story unfolds. It is inconceivable that you, a homely, peace-loving novelist, should be sitting here on a warhorse, dressed in all the panoply of war-you, who, although you do occasionally write of battle, murder, and sudden death in your books, in real life take up even the caterpillars you meet on the road and put them carefully on a leaf in the hedge to save them from being run over and trampled on. Undoubtedly it’s all a dream, a nightmare, nothing more.
Nevertheless, the ghostly and ghastly procession of pictures did not cease, and we had scarcely left the village behind us when-ping!-ping!-ping! from the edge of a small wood to the right, and two or three bullets whistled past behind me and just over the heads of my company.
In a flash I awoke from my dreaming. "Lieutenant Grabert, line the ditch on your right with your section.- Open fire on the edge of the wood.- Two rounds each man! "
The shots rang out like a volley. The whole company wanted to line the ditch and fire too.
" Stay on the road, the rest of the company, and keep moving on slowly," I shouted.
A few figures could be seen running off through the undergrowth, and some of Grabert’s men seemed about to give chase.
"No, Grabert, stop them; they’ll never catch the brutes. join in the column again."
And the march continued.
Monstrous thought, to have been hit, perhaps killed, by one of those bullets fired into the column by a few civilians. A few bitter words among the men on the subject, all seeing red for a moment in our anger, and then we calmed down. In silence the giant snake kept wriggling on along the endless road unceasingly. From time to time I rode back alongside my company and noticed with astonishment that no one was falling out, that today there appeared to be no weaklings. They were all plodding silently on, mile after mile, the sun blazing down upon them, the sweat trickling in streams down their faces, and still they all kept on. Was it the excitement that kept them going, the sight of so many things they’d never seen before, or was it the thought of the reported tortures awaiting them at the hands of marauding bands of armed civilians at night, if they dropped out of the column?
Ahead of us another village. This one apparently unharmed; and then suddenly a great column of blackest smoke, then another, then a third, mounted up above the roofs near the street, all close together. The black cloud curled, twisted, eddied this way and that, great tongues of red flame shooting up through it and spreading out in all directions.
In a few minutes the whole village was in flames and we had to march on through it. It was like marching through Hell. The scorching glow almost stifled us. Cattle bellowed desperately in a blazing barn; hens, their wings and feathers singed away, rushed about the street demented; and what was that lying huddled by a wall? Two dead men in peasant’s smocks. At a crossroad stood a section of the Brandenburg Guard Regiment that formed the advanced guard of the Division that day, and near them a few engineers were shovelling earth back into a freshly dug grave. I asked them for the solution of this riddle, the cause of all this welter and chaos. "Sir," came the answer, "as our leading cavalry patrol was riding through the village, three of the Hussars were shot dead in the street. The other three Hussars dismounted, entered the house where the shots had come from, and there found two peasants with rifles still in their hands. They seized them, and they’ve been shot, and orders were given to burn the village to the ground." A suitable revenge and a just punishment.
In the next village we came to, a whole street of houses lay in ruins, not gutted by fire, but knocked flat as if by a colossal blow from the northern side. Beyond, on top of a green hill, pitted with shell-holes, the black, white, and red flag flew triumphantly. The map gave me the clue to this second riddle of the day, That green hill was Fort Barchon, one of the outer works of Liege, that had held out to the last, and the marks of the firing of our heavy guns battering against it were visible on all sides, including this street of ruins.
"Halt! Two hours’ rest," ran a message passed along down the column. The giant snake lay down and stretched itself out by the roadside. We all seemed to adapt ourselves to the new conditions with amazing rapidity. Sergeant-major Ahlert came up to me with the news that he had discovered two pigs in a shed; should he take them and have them slaughtered?
"All right, give me a requisition form and I’ll sign it." I said.
Ahlert smiled. "The people have all left."
" Well then, leave the form on a table in one of the rooms."
"But the house is on fire, sir."
"Well, don’t then. War is war."
Elberling, one of the two company butchers, said he had found a good place to kill the pigs in, but the owner was still in the house and wouldn’t allow it. "Will you speak to him, sir?"
I found a fat and valiant Belgian inn-keeper, obstinately defiant and in a sullen temper. I said to him, " Look here, monsieur, no nonsense, please! " and clanked the steel end of my scabbard noisily enough on the flagstones of the inn for him to take notice of it. With sunken head he turned and led the way, my two butchers following with the mistrusting, squealing pigs, and then for the first time in my forty-six years I witnessed, with all the naive astonishment of a townsman, the spectacle of the killing and cutting up of a pig.
With fabulous speed those two sturdy Grenadiers, Liebsch and Elberling, converted the unhappy animals into a heap of human food, and a few moments later it was being thrown into the field-cooker to add to the evening meal. We had, we were told, still a long march ahead of us before night.
Beyond Wandre, we suddenly came to the Meuse valley, lying below us at our feet and stretching away into the distance. In a succession of sharp, twisting bends, the road descends steeply to the river-level, and as we crossed it the regimental band struck up to help us along. Passing on through the manufacturing suburb of Herstol all the windows and street corners were crowded with gangs of factory hands who had stopped work and now stared at us, their eyes full of hate.
We continued on to the north-west, this everlasting march, and whenever I trotted to and fro alongside my weary company to cheer them up and urge them on I was met with the question, coming at me almost reproachfully all along the column, "How much farther, captain?" And I could only tell them that God only knew.
It was beginning to get dusk. Through a gap in some heavy clouds to the west we noticed a shining silver apparition; an airship hanging apparently motionless up in the sky, miles away.
To our right a couple of heavy siege batteries was, in position, facing Liege, that lay away to the left; it appeared that two of its southwestern forts were still holding out and the fighting still in progress, though we couldn’t hear a sound.
The remainder of the march, in the failing light and eventually in darkness, was through an interminable succession of villages with a mass of turnings and crossroads. Marching behind artillery is no pleasure, even in peace-time and in daylight, but in war and in the dark it is a great trial. After every block and check of the column, the guns trot on and pick up the unit in front, leaving the heavy-footed infantry to follow on and keep touch as best they can.
Consequently I and my two cyclist orderlies had to spend our time keeping up communication with the artillery often three or four hundred yards in front through this difficult district with so many cross-roads and turnings. I must confess that as I trotted to and fro through these dark streets, with excited groups of civilians at every corner, I felt distinctly nervous, the more so, perhaps, because of the experiences of that day, and I had my loaded revolver ready in my hand all the time.
This most uncomfortable method of travelling lasted several hours till well into the night, and yet on this day, in spite of having covered twenty-eight miles, not one of my lads fell out, not a single one. The thought of falling into the hands of the Walloons was worse than sore feet.
About midnight we arrived at the village of Glons, and my company was allotted two villas for the night - a rest of four hours only. The smaller villa I gave to Grabert’s section, and took the other two sections on to the larger one. In the square and the streets was a seething mass of troops and a deafening hubbub and din. We knocked at the door, rang the bell, and knocked again, and no answer. Locked and bolted. The axe was the only way in, and so it was that these hundred and eighty dog-tired, hungry men, after a day such as they’d never known before, burst through into the well-cared-for and charmingly decorated home of some respectable citizen.
The orders were to take care of all private property, and make only reasonable use of it, but what was more natural than that these men, who had to sleep on the floor, without even straw, should lay their hands on everything soft or warm in the house, for use either as mattress or pillow ? I stopped twenty, thirty men who were upsetting everything in these pretty rooms, but by now I realised definitely, I knew with no further shadow of doubt that I was at war.
After four hours of confused slumber I awoke. Outside in the garden Elberling was slaughtering a bullock; this, too, was a novel spectacle for me. We did what we could to tidy up the rooms again, and then the fieldcooker appeared with coffee.
When the time came to fall in I vowed that never again would the company sleep inside a nice house-they would bivouac outside it. I can honestly say that I had kept good order, but by the morning I was worn out with the effort.
While waiting for the order to move off I had a chat with two villagers standing by. They said: "The rich people, sir, those with plenty of money, have all gone off. Before they left they wanted to turn us poor people into a kind of police force. We were to look after their goods and. chattels, their villas and gardens, while they were away-ha, ha, ha! We laughed in their faces. Why didn’t they stay themselves as we had to? As soon as you’re gone, then, possibly we too shall have a look at their beautiful houses-from the inside. Only out of curiosity of course, vous comprenez, m’sieur! " And their greedy eyes looked across at the comfortable little villa colony over the way.
So this was the spirit, the attitude of mind that the war had brought in its wake. Could it possibly be good for them or anyone else, this loosening of the bonds of common honesty, this lack of any form of respect? To these people nothing was sacred any more.
At last: "Quick-march! March at ease! " We were off again. It was Sunday, a sunny Sunday, but to-day no one was thinking about going to church. The villagers stood about in anxious groups in front of their houses, but they didn’t seem to worry, and throughout that day’s march not a shot came from houses or hedgerow. I noticed, too, that whenever I spoke to any of the villagers, they now answered in a language that was more familiar to me, more reminiscent of my frequent visits to Belgium, and then it struck me that, of course, we had passed through the Walloon half of the country, and were now in that part of it that spoke the Flemish dialect.
That expression of hatred and suspicion on every face had gone, and when questioned they replied fearlessly and at their ease, laughing whenever I attempted to make myself better understood in their own dialect. Major von Kleist, the battalion commander, noticing my frequent conversations with the local inhabitants, told me I was to act in future as his interpreter.
The day’s march took us through cheerful, gently undulating country, and neither the villages nor a single house showed any trace of war. The German barbarians had had no cause to give way to their innate propensity to fire and murder. It was a shorter march, and by two in the afternoon we were in our new quarters, the village of Bloer, that lies on the low side of the main road, at the edge of a large bog, a tangle of swamp, thicket, and trees, and an ideal place for an ambush. Major von Kleist, therefore, gave orders that a man, or if no man was available, a woman, be taken from every household as a hostage and kept together under a guard overnight. He asked me to see to this.
I had very nice quarters, an inn by the roadside with a small shop attached. The proprietress, who spoke French and German equally fluently, received us in a most resigned manner. I decided that the hostages, who were collected together with as little commotion as possible and treated with every consideration, should pass the night in the coffee-room, and they made a queer picture, this medley of people huddled together in the room, guarded by two of my Grenadiers with fixed bayonets.
Naturally the incident had caused tremendous excitement in the village. The wives and children of the hostages had come along to the inn with them, sobbing, beseeching, and praying to Heaven that I wouldn’t shoot their menfolk, and I had the greatest difficulty in calming them. Throughout all the confusion, the proprietress kept perfectly calm and dignified, and although the tears were running down her cheeks as her own husband and his brother were among the hostages, she was quite friendly towards us, cooked for us, baked bread for us, kept up her work in the shop, acted as mediator in any difficulty, and did everything possible to calm the troubled waters in the village-a typical Teutonic woman, full of pluck and vitality.
The next day’s march was without incident. It took us along the old Roman road that leads from Aix-la Chapelle through Maastrecht and Louvain to Brussels, which we should have been on all the time since Aix-la Chapelle but for the fact that we had to go round the Limburg appendix of Holland, whereas the road cuts straight across it.
I and my "staff" were now quite accustomed to each other, and had settled down admirably to the new conditions. As soon as we reached our night’s quarters I, as father of the company, was given the best room with the bed, giving up any unnecessary blankets and pillows to my two orderlies, Sauermann and Niestrawski, the bugler, Pohlenz, and Zock, my servant, who all slept next door; my two grooms slept near the horses.
An early start was ordered for the following day, and when at 3 a.m. I went to battalion headquarters to report my company ready to march, I found the major and the adjutant in the middle of a very excellent breakfast. They gave me the latest news. Ahead two streams crossed our road, between us and Tirlemont, flowing north; they join up about Budingen, and thence, as the River Gette, flow on through Diest. Our march on Tirlemont could be very effectively opposed by a determined enemy operating against our flank from the north-west, and since reconnaissance patrols had reported the presence of enemy cavalry and cyclist troops in the neighbourhood, the Division had orders to capture this sector of the Gette. At last an encounter with the enemy was in sight.
It was still dark when the battalion moved off-and at every beat of one’s throbbing heart the thought repeated itself, to-day we were going into battle, our first battle. After passing through St Trond we left the Roman road and moved off to the north-west in order to deploy for the attack against the line of the Gette. The deployment took place in daylight and by 7 a.m. was completed, my company being along an embankment and awaiting the order to attack.
To our left, on the front of the neighbouring division, the artillery fired the first shots, breaking the silence of this sunny August morning. While giving my orders and seeing them carried out I had no time to think of my own feelings, but I was aware of a slight uneasiness, a kind of strained suspense, as if faced by something that was going to put me to the test. Added to that, a colossal urge forwards, on, on, and not to wait; let whatever is to happen happen soon. And my Grenadiers, what were their feelings? Their faces were filled with a look of tense expectation, everywhere the same burning desire; now at last, after all this footslogging, to grapple with the enemy, to catch him by the throat!
Finally came the order to advance. I led the way on my horse, the company following in company-column not yet extended in battle-formation. We started off as smartly and correctly as if on a parade-ground, but this didn’t last long; for very soon a miserable fight began, not with the enemy, of which there was still no sign, but with the tricks and fancies of a perfectly crazy bit of country, a mad confusion of small copses, meadows, and farms crisscrossed by ditches, hedges, and barbed-wire fences in all directions. In order to keep our proper direction we had to go straight ahead regardless of all these obstacles, and after following a lane a short distance I put my horse at a big hedge and ditch into what seemed at a rather casual glance to be a nice, soft meadow below on the far side. We jumped and then suddenly-crash -squash-and I was up to my hips, horse and all, in a great squelching bog.
My faithful 'staff' ran up, and at once sank up to their waists in the morass. I scrambled off the wildly plunging Alfred, and after a panting fight we eventually got on to terra-firma, and then hauled the trembling, sweating Alfred out of his mud-bath. We were smothered up to our waists in a coal-black, sticky slime, and Alfred was covered with it from head to foot, the contents of my saddle-wallets being completely spoilt.
However, what did it matter; forward, on, on. Luckily the sun was now shining, hot as an oven, and dried, superficially at least, our dripping clothes. I made the best I could of a bad business and joined in the roars of laughter of my company when their captain reappeared looking like the driver of a muck-cart.
But where was the enemy? Where were his shells and bullets that might well have been knocking us to pieces in all this mess-up? Incomprehensible; not a shot, not a shell anywhere, even the gunfire on our left had stopped.
Scratched all over by thorns and barbed-wire, many with their clothes badly torn, all of us wet through both from outside with slush and from inside with sweat, we trudged on through this labyrinth. Adjutants, orderlies, staff officers rushed hither and thither trying to straighten out the confusion or find their own units again. After a couple of hours they succeeded, and the division was assembled once more near the village of Budingen and moved up on to the high ground, this being the out-of-the-world and sparsely inhabited district known as the Hageland.
There we had a three-hour halt, but no mid-day meal; the eagerly awaited cookers never turned up, and at 5 p.m. we moved on again through this deserted rolling upland, uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill, through occasional sleepy, empty villages. The men, utterly exhausted with fatigue, hunger, thirst, and sore feet, were almost at the end of their tether, and it was hard work to cheer them up and keep them going. I constantly had to ride up and down the line, reproaching them or joking ,with them, anything to get their gradually sinking noses up in the air again. And still onwards, onwards.
It was beginning to get dusk, when, suddenly, rifle-fire ahead of us. The column halted, the guns moved away into position on our right flank. and opened fire. A fight! The 1st Battalion was to be in reserve and waited in the narrow side-street of a village close by. Meanwhile it had got quite dark, and then the northern sky was gradually lit up, getting more vivid and glaring every moment until finally a high, bright pillar of flame rose up into the sky. Our guns had set on fire the village of Capellen. The artillery and rifle fire gradually died down, and then the news slowly leaked through; the enemy had evacuated the village. Now back into the column again, another mile or so of marching, or rather shuffling along, and at midnight the battalion arrived in the village of Suerbempede, thoroughly done up and starving.
And that was our first battle-day.
In the inky darkness we were allotted two barns and a comfortable, homely-looking house for the night. I allotted the house to von der Osten and his section, and for myself took the other two sections to the barns, one each. They crowded into them and lay down just as they were; a horrible lodging after such a day. It was nearly 1a.m. when I got back to the house with Sauermann and Niestrawski, and I could scarcely drag my legs up the front steps I was so tired. As the door opened to my knock, an unexpected sight appeared; a venerable old man, with a few snow-white hairs, in the threadbare vestments of a priest, a flickering candle in one hand, and carrying under the other arm a bottle and two glasses. In a kind, though slightly awkward manner, he invited me to come into his house. The heavy boots of my Grenadiers stamping about, upstairs and downstairs, were making a terrible din all through the house, but the old man remained unperturbed. He put the candle on the floor and poured, with rather a shaky hand, the gleaming red wine into the glasses, offered me one and held the other towards me: "Your good health, captain, and welcome to the simple home of a poor parish priest.”
We had heard enough stories about Catholic priests leading their parishioners in treacherous ambushes, poisoning drinks, and so on, so I was not surprised when Sauermann and Niestrawski (even though the latter was himself a Catholic) caught hold of both of my arms and whispered: “Don’t drink, sir, the rascal is sure to have put something in the wine.”
I looked at the rascal carefully once more. He? No, never.
“Monsieur le Cure, ” I said, “ my friends here warn me not to drink your wine; they say you may have poisoned it. But I will rely on my judgment of human character. Your very good health!” and I clinked my glass on his and drank it down in one long, thirsty pull.
“Oh! captain; I, a poor parish priest, poison you? Never, sir, I am a Christian like you.” And in a truly Christian manner did the pious father treat us. My Grenadiers had already spread themselves all over the house, but he made no complaint. Only one thing he asked, and that was that I should have a look at his refugees.
“At who? ” I asked.
“My poor people, captain. Some of my parishioners who have come to me for safety in fear of the invasion.”
“But we do no harm to anyone who doesn’t harm us,” I replied, as the old man led the way to his kitchen. I opened the door; a many-voiced cry of terror greeted me; two dozen terrified pairs of eyes stared at me despairingly. The whole kitchen was crammed full of people of all ages, women, children, and old men, among them two ladies of a better class and well dressed. I had difficulty in convincing them that not one hair of their heads would be touched. They had come to their parish priest to escape the 'barbarians'. I ridiculed the idea.
“Has any one of you ever seen a German soldier commit any infamous act?”
“No, sir, oh no ! But all the world says that you leave no one alive.”
“Indeed! Well, now you can see for yourselves to the contrary.”
I was implored to tell my men not to harm them.
“That would be a nice thing to tell my men. They will harm no one who does not treacherously fire on them.”
After that I sat with the old priest in his study and had supper, an excellent omelette made by himself, washed down with good wine. We spoke of the difficult, terrible times that had suddeniy come over our lovely world, and the priest said he had foreseen it all for a long time; mankind, sinking deeper and deeper in sin and luxurious living, was fast degenerating, and such a punishment as this from Heaven was bitterly needed. And I thought, as I looked at the touching poverty around me, of his life of unselfish devotion among these plain, worm-eaten bits of common-deal furniture, these much-read, wornout books, and how helplessly he must have struggled against the insolently rich and, to his mind, sinful inhabitants of this wealthy district. And now the war had come, and he regarded it as a judgment of God, as a modern version of the Flood, to wash away all sins, and he bowed down before it in humble resignation.
The next day, August 19th, was the worst yet. It seemed as if the still blazing village of Capellen had enraged and maddened the whole neighbourhood. Though actually the result of a skirmish with the enemy, the peasants appeared to regard it as an unmerited and deliberate Hunnish act. We had scarcely got out of the village before we were fired at from every hedge and from every window. Consequently columns of smoke and flame soon belched up into the sky, far and near; men were dragged out of the houses, and any found with a rifle were given short shrift. Others who were only suspected had their hands tied behind their backs with washing-cords, and were driven along with the column until later they could be tried by court-martial.
From the noise of the shots there were probably stragglers in uniform behind the hedges, sniping at us, as well as civilians with sporting rifles, but any thought of pursuit was out of the question, as this district, full of quickset hedges and copses, was a paradise for guerilla warfare. A volley into the hedge or wood where the shots came from, then on! If any were caught, then they got what they deserved.
The roadside was now littered more freely with articles of Belgian uniform and equipment-hats, short dark blue coats, light blue trousers, packs, and so on-but no rifles. We did not know until now that the Belgian infantry soldier carried a suit of civilian clothing in his pack.
Suddenly, halt! Mounted orderlies and staff officers hurried hither and thither. In front of us the villages of Butsel and Hoogbutsel were held by the enemy. The regiment was to attack. I dismounted; the company extended out into the fields and I went to my position twenty yards in front of the centre of my line, my 'staff' close behind me. We advanced across a soppy meadow, and then rifle-fire opened from the edge of the village in front, and there was a noise like the twittering of a lot of swallows about my ears.
“Listen, lads! What’s that strange tschiu-tschiu-tschiu going on all round us?”
“That’s bullets, sir,” said Sauermann, quite at his ease.
“Oh! so that’s bullets! Well, they don’t seem to hit us, and so we’ll go on.” And on we went until we came to the edge of the village. For the last hundred yards the twittering had ceased. The village was empty. The sections were closed in and we passed through the village. Beyond was another green meadow and then another village-Hoogbutsel. More rifle-shots, more twittering of swallows. To our right, two hundred yards ahead, the Fusilier battalion was extended, lying down. It opened a heavy fire on the village edge, and then began to advance in short rushes. Soon the twittering stopped again. We moved slowly on and saw a number of men in dark and light blue uniforms being assembled by the Fusilier battalion and taken to the rear. The first prisoners we’d seen. We reached the village without casualties again, and found to our astonishment German troops already occupying the southern side of it, part of the IX Corps that had been marching parallel with us on our left. Attacked from the flank, the enemy had cleared out.
Farther on, in a field near Bankersem, we had a long rest, and, thank goodness, the cookers were there. Another short march in the boiling midday sun, when a message arrived: 'Enemy advancing from direction of Louvain in front; on the right the villages of Pellenberg and Cortenberg held by the enemy.'
As we, company commanders, were riding back after getting orders from the battalion commander, a few bullets from the high ground to the right hit the road -pitsch, pitsch -between the horses’ legs. A sunken lane enabled me to trot on ahead of the company to see the line of advance, while von der Osten’s section extended to right and left of the lane. Bullets were humming past, when suddenly there was a sharp report close behind me; von der Osten had shot a partridge with his revolver.
Now I dismounted and, climbing up the bank, saw rising ground in front with a row of house-tops appearing over the ridge-Cortenberg village. Osten was already moving his section up to the ridge; now they were coming under fire, they began to double and then disappeared over the top.
“Lieutenant Grabert,” I shouted back, “halt here with your section and wait for orders.” I went on up to the ridge and there, two hundred yards in front, Osten was in position, firing hard at the edge of the village. The enemy’s fire was coming from the boundary hedges of the gardens and from the attic-rooms of the houses, and there were rusty, red as well as thin grey puffs of smoke, showing that civilians as well as soldiers were firing at us. I signalled to Grabert to come on, and a few moments later his section was on the ridge. I jumped up and went forward with them, and in three long rushes we had reached and reinforced Osten’s line, out of breath, and a whole chorus of swallows twittering all about us. Damn it! this was more like business.
“Open fire, Grabert! Aim just below the roofs.” And soon a hail of bullets was rattling against the houses, tiles, and brick-dust flying. Still the dull cracks of sporting rifles, showing that civilians were also engaged, and through my Zeiss glasses I could clearly see how our fire was gradually forcing the enemy to leave the garden hedges and double back, man by man, into the houses, and nearlv every one was a civilian. One of them ran across the open towards the cover of a wood. “Don’t let him escape, lads! “ And he didn’t; he lay there dead in mid-field.
The enemy’s fire died down, and on the flank, where C Company was attacking, it had completely ceased.
“B Company!” I shouted, “ Forward-at the double.” In one long spurt we got to within fifty yards of the garden hedges, lay down, and fired a final volley into them.
“Fix bayonets-charge!” Up again and on, as if doing a drill on the parade ground. The last defenders rushed across the gardens and disappeared among the houses. It was over. I called out to my subalterns: “ Form up your sections for the advance on Pellenberg.”
We moved on. There, in the open field, lay a dead civilian, blood streaming from several wounds. I was on the point of extending out again for the attack on Pellenberg when a message came from the battalion: 'A and D Companies have taken Pellenberg. B and C Companies form up and follow the regiment on the main road towards Louvain.'
Just as we moved off there was a stampede of riderless horses on our right, two or three dozen coming towards us. “ Catch them!” I called out, and half the company spread out, I with them, and we caught seven, mine a very handsome black mare, obviously belonging to a Belgian cavalry regiment, the lances still in the stirrup straps. With our booty we marched on in good spirits, my Grenadiers in full song. Forgotten, those two weeks of endless marching in the sweltering heat and dust, for now we knew what it was; we had had our baptism of fire. What a curiously solemn expression that sounds, and yet in reality how commonplace and matter-of-fact it is. There in front is the enemy; he shoots at you, and you shoot back at him. No time to think of danger, or of the fear of being shot, one just shoots and perhaps kills without thinking that one may also be killed oneself.
The Fusilier battalion of our regiment was attacking Louvain. A few shells, a certain amount of rifle-fire, and the skirmishing lines had reached the edge of the town. We had halted on a flat plateau overlooking it, and could see through the midday haze its towers and Gothic roofs and spires. The cookers came up and the captured horses were distributed, the black remaining in my possession and nicknamed by the men Alfred the Belgian, a name it kept. A message arrived:
'Louvain is ours. Continue the march.'
After an hour we passed through one of its deserted suburbs, where a few Belgian priests, with Red Cross bands on their arms, came to meet us, very solemn and reserved. I described the place where I knew some wounded lay, and they promised to bring them in and attend to them.
Unfortunately we did not go through the town itself, but skirted its southern side. Some Belgian soldiers came out to us with uplifted arms and were taken on in the column as prisoners. This was indeed an easy victory, and we went on our way singing merrily: O Deutschland hoch in Ehren , and Es braust ein Ruf.
The inhabitants stood in large groups at the street corners, their faces masking their thoughts, though a number of girls were laughing and winking at us. The road now lay on higher ground and, looking to our right over the tops of an avenue of elm trees, we had a good view of this beautiful town with its fine spires and towers shining gold in the afternoon sun. Six days later rebellion, street-fighting, and wholesale conflagrations were to rage here, but now it was a picture of peace, perfect peace.
It was beginning to get dark when we approached our billets in Berthem. Suddenly a message:
'Enemy entrenched on the high ground to the west. Attack them.'
We deployed into column of sections off the road towards the high ground and then extended out. A wood lay along the top of the hill and our artillery sent a few shells over us that burst exactly along the edge of the wood where the enemy were. That was sufficient; they bolted. We went back to the road. In front a pillar of flame shot up in the evening twilight, then another, three, five pillars of flame. Our village, our billets were on fire. After much delay, confusion, and exhaustion, the order finally came:
'The battalion will bivouac at the western edge of the village, with outposts out towards Brussels.'
We pitched our camp among the burning houses, near some gutted farm-buildings which would have made most comfortable night quarters. Our first war-bivouac! I lay down under my narrow shelter tent and was sound asleep in a second.
That was August 19th, the birthday of my far-away and beloved little daughter, and I had not remembered it, I hadn’t even given it a thought.
We rose early, washed in the dew on the field, and marched away into another radiant summer morning. At midday we were to march into Brussels. Brussels the Belgian capital. It was fabulous, surely a dream. Was this whole war just a game, a kind of sport? Was this Belgian Army just a pack of hares?
We passed through Tervueren with its green parks, its fine railway station on our right and its magnificent castle on our left, and then along a wonderful avenue, the great arched corridor of trees that leads through the Forest of Soignies, in which we had a halt. All the time one felt that queer prickling sensation of victory, goading us on; in less than an hour we would be entering Brussels.
Actually, however, we turned left-handed just before entering the town and marched through the southern suburbs, bivouacking that evening in a field near Ruysbroek. My company had to do outpost duty covering the battalion bivouac from the west; I posted the piquets and sentries and the evening passed as pleasantly as if on manoeuvres and the night in delightful summer peace.
The next morning our heavy baggage appeared for the first time. I opened my regulation trunk in a farmyard, and what pleasure to see everything lying there just as those dear hands had packed them at Stuttgart! And as I turned them over, such a fragrance of cleanliness and comfort, such a fragrance of home arose that hasty tears came to my eyes. My dear ones away back over there! No news for two weeks and no means of sending any back. The field-post brought nothing and took nothing, there was no bridge between us over the great gulf of the past two weeks.
Only a short march the following day. In the town of Hal there was an unexpected halt. Adjutants and mounted orderlies clattered over the cobbles. An enemy was said to be holding the ridge south-west of the town and a fight appeared probable. After a while more messages. No! again nothing. Really it was like having war administered to us in small homeopathic doses.
Inquisitive people gathered round us as we waited. A well-dressed lady approached our battalion commander, and taking from her bosom a rosette in the Belgian and English colours, handed it to him with a sweet smile. Major von Kleist quickly gathering together all he knew of the French language replied: “Madame, che crois, que vous-croyez-que che suis-ung Anglais-mais che ne suis pas-ung Anglais -che suis-ung Allemang.” Horror on the part of the lady and a hasty withdrawal.
An elderly, intelligent looking man came up to me and, pointing to the field-cooker which was just starting off and smoking, asked: “Please, sir, that is a gun to defend you against aeroplanes, isn’t it?”
“Yes, of course, monsieur-it’s going to fire almost immediately-look, it’s smoking already . . .”
Sergeant Schuler, the smart young clerk of Berlin, was surrounded by flirting femininity. The people of Hal, in fact, seemed to find no difficulty in overcoming the fact that we were not Englishmen; and the German atrocities consisted in a most harmless catching of twinkling eyes. That, at all events, is the only atrocity I myself have experienced, seen, or reliably heard about. The people treated us with real friendship. My company’s billets were in a disused sugar factory, and here, at any rate, there was nothing to spoil. Out of use for some years, it was rapidly tumbling to pieces, but the inhabitants brought us a quantity, of straw and made the big ruined sheds quite comfortable.
My two subalterns and I were quartered in the villa of a manufacturer. He welcomed us most amiably and introduced us to his charming wife who, in a rustling silk dress, led us three filthy fellows into her drawing-room and gave us coffee, liqueur brandy, and cigarettes. Our conversation was as if we were paying a visit among our own people, though the subjects were rather more serious.
“Why has your little Belgium offered this senseless and useless resistance to our overwhelming superiority?” I asked.
“You must think of our self-respect, captain,” said Monsieur P., “and what the rest of the world would have thought of us if we had just let you pass through. But now we have done enough, I think, to preserve our honour, and we all hope that our gallant young King will make a reasonable peace with you.”
“Do you know where your King is?”
“He is fighting with our splendid troops, who have retired behind the forts of Antwerp, and there I expect he will await your representatives to negotiate the peace.”
“We also hope that may happen. The two countries have always been on such good terms.”
“And hasn’t our brave little army fought brilliantly, captain?” asked madame, her fine black eyes sparkling with patriotic enthusiasm.
“Most certainly, madame,” I replied, with my tongue in my cheek. “They have fought like bull-dogs.”
We got on splendidly together. I had a most luxurious bath, the first since Weisweiler-unadulterated, heavenly bliss-and in the evening we had a three-course dinner with champagne. Monsieur in his tail-coat, madame in a smart low-cut dress, and we in our war-garments, all brushed up and as tidy as we could make ourselves. The conversation was a mixed grill: a little bit of war, quite a lot of art, Rubens, Jordaens, Geefs, Meunier, Belgium’s seaside resorts, Blankenberghe, my holiday reminiscences, and so on. I had to show them the photographs of my beloved family. My subalterns, whose conversational
command of the French language was limited, drank, smoked, looked
sympathetic when necessary, and smiled whenever madame showed
her beautiful teeth. What a wonderful world it was, to be sure, and
how easy to get on with one another, even with our enemies!
The following morning we set off again, now in a southwesterly
direction. Distant artillery fire could be heard, but we ourselves
marched in the most profound peace. We passed through Enghien,
alongside an interminable park wall: historic memories of Napoleonic
times came to one's mind. The heat became positively oppressive
and the men began to get disheartened. These everlasting long
marches day after day. . . . I shared out my last cigarettes and offered
to carry one of the men's rifles: he seemed to be staggering a bit, and
though the others jeered at his lack of backbone he gave in and let
me take it. Soon I was carrying another as well, both slung across my
chest, and even though on horseback it was quite enough. We
halted at midday in a field somewhere for a rest. Suddenly an
aeroplane appeared overhead. This time there was no doubt about it:
the red, white, and blue rings under the wings could be seen with the
naked eye. I told off two groups to fire at it, and soon everyone
seemed to be firing at it. It turned back as if to return southward but
too late: its nose turned down, it made several corkscrew turns, and
then fell like a stone a mile or so away. Murmurs of satisfaction all
round. A little later three Hussars came past and shouted out that
they had found the aeroplane in a field farther on. "What about the
pilot and observer?" I asked. "Both in bits, sir."
During the afternoon we arrived at Thoricourt. The heat had affected
me, and feeling feverish I sank on to a large bed in my farmhouse
billet. My "staff" attended to me as if I'd been a sick pet lamb, but
only for a few hours, as my company was again on outposts and I
had to ride round the piquets and have barriers put across the roads in
front. Enemy cavalry were reported in the neighbourhood; English,
so it was said. English? Good God! the very thought was enough to
make one die with laughter.
The fact is that by this time the whole war seemed to have lost its
true perspective for us. The serious aspect of it had almost faded
away. It had become a joke, though a hard-working one. Nothing but
march, march, march, to an extent never imagined by us. We had now
done fourteen consecutive days without a single rest-day. It had
apparently become a matter of beating the enemy with our legs, for he
would not stand up to us. Where was he, anyhow? The Belgians
were off the map, and the French and English, who had promised
that unfortunate little country their protection, where were they? So
far we hadn't seen a sign of them, and to-morrow, Sunday, we were, if
all was well, to cross the French frontier.
We had outmarched our communications. Not once
had the supply columns got up to us, and we had had to
live on the country, fortunately a very well-stocked one,
taking what we could find. Of coffee, meat, potatoes, and
vegetables there was no lack-only bread, that failed us
completely, and I now learnt for the first time what a
vitally important part bread plays in the life of the working
man. The Grenadiers began to grumble about the flour
rations.
"Look here, lads, you get three warm meals a day; coffee and
porridge in the morning, meat and vegetable soup at midday, and
enough of it to tighten your bellies, and in the evening porridge
again-how much more do you want?"
"We get no bread, sir."
" That's true, I get no bread myself either. There's
flour in sackfuls but no time to bake it, and no yeast. All the
same you've been able to fill yourselves every day."
"But we get no bread, sir, and without bread no man can
carry on like this for long- anyway if he has to slog along
twenty to thirty miles every day."
I shrugged my shoulders. " Children, we are at war. I am
giving you all I can get."
"Having no bread is bad enough, sir, but having no post is ten
times worse."
"I quite agree with you, children. I also don't know what's
happening at home- but neither do they at home know what's
happening to us, and they are ten times worse off than we
are."
" Anyhow it shouldn't be so, " grumbled my Grenadiers. "It's
all wrong."
"Remember again, children, it's war, and very likely there is
much worse still to come."
And there was, and soon too.
X
SUNDAY: the second since we crossed the Rhine. Reports
coming back along the column seemed to confirm the fact
that the English were in front of us. English soldiers? We
knew what they looked like by the comic papers; short
scarlet tunics with small caps set at an angle on their heads,
or bearskins with the chin-strap under the lip instead of
under the chin. There was much joking about this, and also
about Bismarck's remark of sending the police to arrest the
English Army.
The day, though overcast, was sweltering hot again. The
sweat poured off the men's faces as they trudged on, and a
big wood we marched through made the atmosphere even
more stifling, rather than cooling us with it's shade. The
regiment was advanced guard, and after a march of some
twelve miles halted in the village of Baudour. Hussar patrols,
trotting past, reported the country free of the enemy for fifty
miles ahead. The cookers were brought up and we settled
down to a comfortable midday rest. Scarcely had we
finished our meal, when two Hussars, covered in blood,
galloped up to us stating that the enemy was holding the line
of the canal in front. A third Hussar limped along behind
them, carrying a bloodstained saddle; his horse had been
shot under him: "They are in the village just ahead."
I called to Ahlert: "Tell the company to hurry up with their
meal. We shall probably be moving in a few minutes."
Almost at once despatch-riders, adjutants, motorcyclists
rushed past. Somehow we all felt in our bones that this time
there was going to be real business. A signal from the
adjutant; the Major wished to see the company commanders.
"Mussigbrodt, bring my horse." In a moment we were
gathered round our battalion commander.
" Maps out, gentlemen! The village of Tertre in front of us is
held by the enemy: strength not yet known. The regiment will
attack. The Fusilier battalion, supported by two batteries in
position south of Baudour, will occupy Tertre railway station.
We, the 1st Battalion, have orders to take the strip of wood
west and south-west of Baudour- you will see it on the map,
gentlemen- and clear any enemy out of it. We shall be
supported by Wiskott's Battery. My orders, therefore, are as
follows: The battalion will advance at once on the strip of
wood, companies in the following order; B, A, C, D. B
Company will send out half a section both to its right and left
as flank-guards to the battalion. Any questions, gentlemen?
No. Then please move off immediately."
I galloped back to my company. "Fall in!" I sent Sergeant
Schuler with half his section to the right and the other half
under Corporal Tettenborn to the left. Tettenborn, a gallant
and splendid soldier, I never saw again; he lies buried at the
southern edge of Tertre village, one of the first of the
regiment to be killed.
We marched off. The Fusilier battalion was extending out, its
front line of skirmishers already under enemy fire from the
direction of Tertre station, a few bullets whistling
over us too. Wiskott's Battery galloped past, and a few
minutes later, as we turned off to the right towards the
wood, the guns were already unlimbered alongside a
factory wall, their muzzles pointing at the wood. The battery
commander was on the observation ladder looking through his
glasses, and we had scarcely got past before they opened
fire, the first shells whizzing just over our heads.
The battalion now deployed for the attack. My company was
to clear the centre of the wood, crossing through it in a south-
westerly direction; A Company was to clear the southern
part, with C on its left moving on the northwest end of Tertre
village; D in battalion reserve.
I now had only two sections in hand, and ordered Lieutenant
von der Osten to take a group of his No.1 Section to the
railway embankment on our right, covering that flank and
moving along it as far as its point of junction with the northern
edge of the wood where he would regain touch with the
company. The remainder of his section, under Sergeant
Holder-Egger, was to extend and go through the wood,
keeping the south-westerly direction: I would go with it.
Lieutenant Grabert's No. 2 Section was to follow in support.
We struggled through a mass of dense undergrowth, and
reached the farther edge with our faces and hands scratched
all over, but otherwise met no opposition. Looking from here
Tertre village was on our left, and from the noise of rifle-fire
and bursting shells it was clear that heavy fighting had begun
with an enemy not to be so easily brushed aside. In front lay
an extremely long, flat, marshy-looking meadow. Its left side
was broken into by scattered buildings and sheds, and on the
right a narrow strip of wood jutted out into it. At the far end, about
1500 yards straight ahead, were more scattered groups of buildings.
Between the near and the far buildings a number of cows were
peacefully grazing.
We had no sooner left the edge of the wood than a volley of bullets
whistled past our noses and cracked into the trees behind. Five or
six cries near me, five or six of my grey lads collapsed on the grass.
Damn it! this was serious. The firing seemed at long range and half-
left.
" Forward! " I shouted, taking my place with three of my "staff" ten
paces in front of the section leader, Holder-Egger, and the section in
well-extended formation ten paces behind him again. Here we were,
advancing as if on a parade ground. Huitt,huitt,srr,srr! about our
ears, away in front a sharp, rapid hammering sound, then a pause,
then more rapid hammering- machine guns. Over to our left, about
Tertre, the rifle and machine-gun fire was even more intense, the roar
of guns and bursting shells increasing. A real battle this time!
We were approaching one of the scattered farm buildings in the
meadow, and being the first I went in, and noticed at once a group of
fine-looking horses, all saddled up. I turned to my "staff": "Get hold
of the horses; but look out! Where there are horses there must be
riders." I had scarcely spoken when a man appeared not five paces
away from behind the horses-a man in a grey-brown uniform, no, in a
grey-brown golfing suit with a flat-topped cloth cap. Could this be a
soldier? Certainly not a French soldier, nor a Belgian, then he must
be an English one. So that's how they dress now! All this flashed
through my mind in the fraction of a second, and in the meantime the
fellow had raised his arm, a sharp report, a wisp of smoke, and the
whisk of a bullet passed my head. In the same second I had pulled
out my
loaded revolver and fired-peng!-missed too. He dodged behind the
horses and I behind the buttress of a wall, my blasted revolver had
jammed! I pulled the empty case out of the chamber: it ran free again.
Then I peered round the side of the wall aiming, ready to fire. Yes,
there he was, his long, thin face just behind a horse's tail looking at
me, also along the sights of his revolver. We fired simultaneously,
again missed by a hair's breadth, and then suddenly he rushed away
with long strides into the meadow. Ten, twelve shots rang out and
he fell dead on the grass. My staff had run round to the other side of
the building to tackle him from behind: he had seen them and then
took to his heels, but too late.
"Holder-Egger, stay here with two men to hold the horses-hand
them over to be taken back as soon as you can-mind you say they
belong to B Company."
"Right, sir!"
"Come on, the remainder!" As we left the buildings and were
extending out again, another shower of bullets came across the
meadow and rattled against the walls and all about us. More cries,
more men fell. In front a farm track on a slightly raised
embankment crossed our direction.
Line the bank in front," I ordered, and in a few short rushes we were
there, lying flat against the grass bank and looking cautiously over
the top. Where was the enemy? Not the faintest sign of him
anywhere, nothing except the cows that had become restless and
were gadding about. One, as I watched, rose on its hind legs, and
then collapsed in a heap on the ground. And
still the bullets kept coming, over our heads and all about us.
I searched through my glasses. Yes, there among the buildings
away at the far end of the meadow was a faint haze of smoke. Then
in God's name let us get closer.
" Forward again-at the double! " We crossed the track, jumped the
broad dyke full of stagnant water on the far side, and then on
across the squelching meadow. Tack, tack, tack, tack, tack!-srr--srr-
huitt-tschiu-tschiu-tschiu!-cries-more lads falling.
"Down! Open fire-far end of meadow-range 1000 yards! "
And so we went on, gradually working forward by rushes of a
hundred, later fifty, and then about thirty yards towards the
invisible enemy. At every rush a few more fell, but one could do
nothing for them. On, on, that was the only solution. Easier said
than done, however, for not only was the meadow horribly swampy,
filling our boots with water, but it was intersected by broad, water-
logged drains and barbed-wire fences that had to be cut through.
Where was the rest of the battalion? Nothing to be seen of them
Yes, there, a hundred yards to our left, a section of Grenadiers was
working forward like us by
short rushes, its leader, in front at every rush, taking giant strides.
Why, it's the long-legged Fritz-Dietrich Graser he who sang the
"Krone am Rhein" so well that evening at Weisweiler when we sat
listening to the band with the old lady and her pretty niece. I'd
known him for two years now, and a charming fellow he was. Now
they were down again, this time along another broad water-drain
with a barbed-wire fence along the enemy's side of it. And what was
Graser doing? Sure enough, he was running along the whole front
of his section cutting the wire fence himself, in the middle of a burst
of rifle and machine-gun fire. Plucky young devil!
Sergeant Holder-Egger now came up from behind with his two men,
threw himself down in the muddy meadow beside me, panting for
breath, and reported that he had handed the horses over to
Lieutenant Grabert's section.
"There was another Englishman hidden in the farm," he said.
Lieutenant Grabert shot him with his revolver.
I looked again all round. The enemy was still invisible. Graser was
off again with his section, another long rush. He was now level with
us, if anything slightly ahead.
"Lads!" I called out, "Do you see that? A Company is getting
ahead of us. Can we allow it? Holder-Egger, on you go! "
"No.1 Section-rush!" And so another thirty yards nearer the enemy,
and about twelve in front of Graser's section.
Graser then recognised me, and running up lay down beside me.
"Sir," he said, gasping for breath, "I've got separated from my
company. May I join you with my section?"
Splendid! And welcome all of you to the Royal B
Company. Another section-now I've quite an army again at my
command!"
" It will be an honour, sir, for me to have my first fight under your
orders."
He raised himself on his elbows, looked ahead, and then back at
me, a flash of battle in his clear boyish eyes.
"Look, sir, do you see that white house over there? There's a
machine gun in it. Shall we get it, sir?"
"Anyhow, I won't leave you in the lurch, Graser; we'll try." I
shouted down the line: "Advance by groups from the right, in
short rushes." And then I heard Holder-Egger's voice as he led on
forward.
From our new line I again searched the front through my glasses.
Still no sign of the enemy. Only the unfortunate cows, now just
ahead of us, and being between the two firing lines they were in a
bad way, bellowing desperately, one after the other collapsing. To
right and left, a cry here, a cry there: "I'm hit, sir! 0 God! Oh,
mother! I'm done for! "
" I'm dying, sir! " said another near me. " I can't help you, my
young man, we must go on- come, give me your hand."
Graser's clear voice again: "On again-double! " On we went.
Behind us the whole meadow was dotted with little grey heaps.
The hundred and sixty men that left the wood with me had shrunk
to less than a hundred. But Grabert's section at my signal had now
worked forward and prolonged our line to the right. He, too, had
lost heavily, nevertheless there was still quite a respectable crowd
of us gradually moving on, wave by wave, closer and closer to the
invisible enemy. We officers had some time previously taken a rifle
from a dead or wounded man, filled our pockets with cartridges,
and were firing away into the haze of smoke at the far end of the
meadow. I
felt, however, that these continuous rushes were telling on the
men, and that they must have a breathing space.
" Stop for a bit!" I shouted down the line. " No further advance
without my orders!"
I noticed that at this period of the advance if one lay quite flat, the
enemy's fire always passed over one, that it was, in fact, slightly
high all the time we were lying down. It appeared very strange at
the time, and it was not until several months later when a wounded
friend was showing me photographs he had taken afterwards of the
English position, that I saw the reason. At the end of this meadow
was a canal with an embankment on either side. The enemy's
position was on the farther embankment, so that he had to fire over
the embankment on our side, and as we were crossing a flat
meadow below the canal level, this near-side embankment made a
lot of dead ground for us, the shelter of which naturally became
more pronounced the nearer we got to the canal. The machine-gun
fire from the houses on this side of the canal seemed to have been
silenced-they were hammering no more at us anyhow.
We were now about 500 yards from the canal bank. A few paces in
front lay some of the miserable cows in horrible death agonies.
While I was meditating on the situation I suddenly heard a voice
on my left saying: " Graser, would you like a glass of champagne?"
I was dumbfounded. On my immediate left lay a private of A
Company, unknown to me, then came Graser, then a long, lanky
corporal with a face marked both with a look of drink and with
several long scars across his left cheek. Glancing at him I
remembered his face, that of a student who had served his year
with the colours in A Company some time back. I had heard that
there was a doctor, a former student, who had joined up and had
done his army service with that company, and so I
now imagined this was the man. Anyhow it was from his lips
had come the amazing ofFer to Graser.
I shall never forget the look on the others' faces as this
unknown corporal, taking his rifle in his right hand, put his left
into his haversack and out of it produced, with a giggle of
triumph, a golden-necked bottle.
" Well, I'll be damned, Knopfe! " said Graser. " Where the
devil did you find that?"
The old student laughed slyly: "It found itself in my
haversack."
" Wonderful! Pass it along. Who knows, it may be our last
drink! " And then, turning to me, Graser asked: "Have you a
cup by any chance, sir?"
"I have, but you'll only get it on the condition that I have a
smack as well."
"But of course!" laughed Griser. "The captain and I, and the
lucky owner, Knopfe, and my gallant orderly here, Blose, we
four, in these pleasant surroundings, will empty the bottle to
the health of the regiment."
I handed over my aluminium drinking-cup, the cork popped-
and there, lying flat on our stomachs all the time, five
hundred yards from the English position, we four finished the
bottle of champagne between us. Yes, quite comfortably,
with the enemy's bullets almost shaving the tops of our
heads. Graser shared out his last cigarettes and there we lay
for a while smoking, stretched out flat.
"Well, gentlemen, now we've got the necessary courage
inside we can go on!" and looking down the line I shouted:
"Advance by short rushes from the right! " and the order
was passed along.
From now on the English fire gradually weakened, almost
ceased. No hail of bullets greeted each rush forward, and we
were able to get within 150 yards of the canal bank. I said to
Graser: "Now we'll do one more
30-yard rush, all together, then fix bayonets and charge the
houses and the canal banks."
The enemy must have been waiting for this moment to get us
all together at close range, for immediately the line rose it
was as if the hounds of hell had been loosed at us, yelling,
barking, hammering as a mass of lead swept in among us.
"Down!" I shouted, and on my left I heard through the din
Graser's voice repeating it. Voluntarily and in many cases
involuntarily, we all collapsed flat on the grass as if swept by
a scythe.
Previously after each rush Graser had brightened us up with
a commentary of curses and cheery chatter, but now there
was a noticeable silence on my left.
"Graser!' I called out. No answer. "Where is Lieutenant
Graser?" And then from among the cries and groans all
round came a low-voiced reply: "Lieutenant Graser is dead,
sir, just this moment. Shot through the head and heart as he
fell. He's here."
I was speechless, as if someone had caught me by the
throat, choking me. Graser dead.-Incredible! A moment ago
sparkling with life, fun, and the devil's own courage: now
dead. Then it had indeed been his last drink!
From now on matters went from bad to worse. Wherever I
looked, right or left, were dead or wounded, quivering in
convulsions, groaning terribly, blood oozing from fresh
wounds. The worst was that the heaviest firing now began to
come on us from the strip of wood that jutted out into the
meadow to our right rear. It must be our own men, I thought,
who could not imagine we had got on so far and now
evidently took us for the enemy. Luckily we had a way of
stopping that: " Who has the red flag? " Grenadier Just
produced it, and lying on his back waved it wildly. No result;
in fact the fire from
the right rear became even heavier. The brave Just
stood up and with complete unconcern continued to
wave the red flag more frantically than ever. But still
no effect.
"Lie down, Just, good fellow, you've done well but it's no use;
they must see but they won't believe."
I blew my whistle full blast and any of the N.C.O.'s with
whistles did the same. Still no good. The firing continued,
more and more of my men were being hit.
I discovered too at this time that we had scarcely any
ammunition left; and here we were, isolated and 120 yards
from the English position. Next to me was a Grenadier hit
through both cheeks and tongue, his face a mass of blood;
and beyond him Pohlenz, my bugler, a bullet hole through the
bugle slung on his back, the home-made cigarette in the
corner of his mouth, and himself firing shot after shot, as
calmly as an old philosopher, at the garden of the white house
in front. He declared he'd seen someone moving in it.
"Pohlenz, my lad, stop firing. We must keep every round
we've got in case those fellows across the canal make a
counter-attack on us. Instead, you must make your way back
as quick as you can to the battalion, find the major and tell
him that B Company is here, has no more ammunition, and
has had heavy losses and wants reinforcements and
ammunition."
He repeated the message. "B Company is close up against
the English position, heavy losses, no more cartridges, wants
reinforcements and ammunition," then put another cigarette,
rolled in the interval between his two last shots, in the left
corner of his mouth, stood up in the most casual manner and
went back. Bullets
seemed to come at him from all directions, but he appeared
to have a charmed life and went leisurely on.
Where were the others? Where was Holder-Egger? I called
his name: " Wounded in the last rush-he's lying ten paces
behind you, sir." I crawled back to him. There he lay, the fine
young fellow, on his back, a hole in his coat and a trickle of
blood marking a wound in the stomach. His eyes stared
motionless up to the evening sky.
"How are you, Holder-Egger?"
He turned his head feebly towards me. "It's all over with me.
I'm done, sir," he said lifelessly.
" Oh, nonsense. Is the wound dressed?"
"No, captain." He closed his eyes and seemed to shrink away
into himself. I listened; he was still breathing. Opening the
blood-soaked coat I found the wound and tried to bandage it,
bringing the bandage-tapes round under him, but it was
difficult and the bleeding didn't stop. I looked round for help,
and a few paces from Graser's corpse saw Corporal
Knopfe's lanky figure, the dispenser of the champagne.
" Knopfe!" I called out, " come here, doctor, and help dress
this man's wound."
He crawled back to me and made a first-rate job of it. Of
course being a doctor he should, I thought. "Come along,
doctor, and let's bandage up some of the other poor devils."
And off we started, getting grateful glances mixed with
groans of agony for our reward.
"Please, sir, I've such a thirst!"
"I'm sorry, lad, but I've left my flask on my horse."
"I've some, sir," said Knopfe, and he gave the parched throat
refreshment.
"Will you bandage me too, sir," came a voice from the right,
"I'm in such pain!"
Yes, my little lad, we're just coming, " and so it went on.
The fire began again from the front-srr-srr-tschiu-tschuitt! all
among us. One of the wounded men was hit a second time,
another unwounded got hit through the head and just relaxed
dead.
"Soon, at this rate, not one of us will be left alive," muttered
Knopfe sullenly. From the white house a machine gun
traversed once, twice, three times all the length of our line,
followed by a message passed down from the right: "
Lieutenant Grabert very badly wounded, sir." Good God, he
too! The burden of responsibility was becoming appalling,
insupportable.
"Come along, doctor, we must go and dress Grabert's wound.
But keep very close to the ground so that in front they'll think
we're all dead. A few more like the last and we all shall be."
We wriggled along like a couple of snakes behind the row of
hob-nailed boots of the living and the dead.
"Why do you keep calling me doctor?" asked Knopfe as we
went. "My subject is philology, not medicine. You must be
mixing me with Warnecke, who is with C Company."
"Yes, I did think you were a doctor. Where did you learn to
dress a wound so well?"
"In the same place as you learnt it, sir."
Students from the same university-a smile, a laugh was
irresistible even here in the middle of this grizzly battlefield,
as a mass of joyous scenes of the university life of our youth
flashed unspoken through our minds . . . " Vaterland, du land
des Ruhmes weih zu deines Heiligtumes Hutern, Hutern uns
und unser Schwert. . . . "
There lay poor Grabert, a deathly pallor over his strong face.
"Where are you hit, Grabert?" He pointed to his waist. I opened
the blood-stained coat but found the skin unmarked. "No, it
isn't there," I said, and he then pointed to his right shoulder.
This was more probable,
as the chest and right sleeve of his coat were soaked through
with blood. I got out my war-knife, that wonderful knife with
so many odds and ends in it that I had bought the day
before mobilisation, that day of shopping with you, dear wife,
in Stuttgart. For a second as I took it out a flood of memories
came to me from far, ever so far away, from another, a lost
world, lost maybe for ever. It was a long and difficult job. He
had had at least three machine-gun bullets through him. His
right shoulder was shot clean through, and two bullets
through the right breast which must have pierced his lung.
We dressed his wounds as best we could, getting some more
bandages from the dead alongside.
All this time the rifle-fire was continuing from the canal bank,
but so long as we kept flat and our heads well down the
bullets passed just over us. The sky was beginning_ to
redden in the west; if only night would come quickly. I looked
back for any sign of reinforcements or ammunition being sent
up. Nothing coming, nothing. Yes, one man. It was Pohlenz.
Brave lad, I'd given him up some time since as dead. But
there he was, fired at from all directions, and he cared not;
still a cigarette between the narrow lips of his happy-go-
lucky, gutter snipe face. He lay down beside me and took out
of his pockets four packets of cartridges: "The major says we
are to stay where we are, and the battalion will soon be
coming up to us bringing ammunition with them. And here's a
little to carry on with." He opened the packets and threw the
chargerfuls to left and right, eager hands reaching out for
them. " And here's a regimental order."
I unrolled the scrap of paper from a field note-book.
"According to orders from Brigade Headquarters a general
attack will be made on the bridges at 6.30 p.m."
On the bridges! Of course, the canal bridges. The map showed a
thing like a bridge near the group of houses half
right called Les Herbieres. Good! when the others come up
we'll go on with them. To go on alone now would be idiotic. I
looked at my watch. The attack was to be at 6.30. It was
already 7 p.m.
" What's happening back there? " I asked Pohlenz.
"The battalion is three or four hundred yards behind us."
"Many losses?"
Pohlenz beat the air with his hands two or three times. "Grey
corpses lying all over the meadow."
"Have all the companies had losses?"
"All of them, sir."
Damn! The enemy were firing like madmen again.
Astounding that any of us still lived. The bullets hummed
about me like a swarm of angry hornets. I felt death, my own
death, very, very near me; and yet it was all so strangely
unreal. How many times had I not experienced all this in my
imagination during the writing of those war-novels, and yet
now, just this one time, I was asked to believe it to be solid
fact. Nevertheless death did not come to me, so very close
but not yet; and while I lived I would at least help all I could.
"Come along, Knopfe; someone just behind wants us."
It must have been some hours, it seemed an eternity, before
gradually the dusk came, terribly slowly, but at last it began to
cover us. The assault on the bridges must have been put off,
for the battalion did not appear. Another of my splendid lads
was bandaged up, and then I wiped the blood off my knife
and hands and rested a moment. Near me lay Corporal
Grandeit, one of the bravest and most cheerful of men,
smoking a cigarette. He evidently noticed a look of longing in
my glance.
"Will you have one, sir?"
"My good friend, you have no idea . . . no, it's your last. You
must keep it."
"Please, sir, I insist. You must take it," and his fingers,
covered with blood and mud, placed the little roll of bliss in my
mouth; and, God! how wonderful it tasted, the best in a
lifetime! And, spite of all, how very good it was, lying here
with all these splendid, loyal hearts beating around me, some
cold, but the rest steadily, strongly beating, and all of them
valiant. I began to experience that amazing bond of friendship
that springs up between those who are facing death, risking
all, together. Children, almost I love you.
In the half-light there was suddenly a stir behind us.
Reinforcements; actually reinforcements. It was von der
Osten and his group. He had followed the embankment to the
wood, and after that had not been able to find us again.
He had asked everywhere for B Company but none knew where
it had gone. Finally by following up the trail of dead and
wounded, recognising them by the company tassel on the
shoulder, he had arrived, each of his nine men with two
hundred and fifty rounds apiece. This ammunition was quickly
distributed along the line and another effort made to silence
the machine gun in the upper room of the white house.
" Two rounds each at the white house. Aim just below the
eaves of the roof!" Through my glasses I could see in the
failing light that at least no window pane was left. The gun
was silent for a while, maybe altogether, I never knew. As
the darkness deepened the din of battle all along the line
quietened down, and then quite distinctly from behind came a
bugle-call, the 1st Battalion " assembly." Surely we had not to
go back, to give up what we had gained? But the call was
repeated again and again. We had to obey; it was impossible
for us to judge the general situation, And, no doubt, it was for
the best. It was now too dark for the enemy to see. I got up
on my legs, my limbs all stiff and hurting as if they'd been
drawn from their sockets. The dampness of the meadow and the
soaking in the dykes had wetted my clothes through to the
skin. Nevertheless I was up, actually standing up.
"Did you hear that, lads? We have to go back. But we must
take the wounded with us." The pieces of tentcloth carried by
each man were tied to rifles and on these extemporised
stretchers all the wounded were gradually collected. It meant
hard work for the others and took time, but it had to be done
in spite of protests from some of the wounded themselves,
though others were only too willing to be moved, and in any
case they couldn't be left where they were.
"Me too, sir, me too!" "Of course, lad, only be patient, and wait
your turn."
Knopfe did not leave my side, and Pohlenz, Niestrawski,
Sauermann all joined us. Marvellous, my three trusty staff,
not a hair of any of them touched. Thanks to the darkness all
went well. No more bullets came from the canal bank, only in
the distance an occasional crackle of musketry. So
conscientious were we in those early days of the war that we
collected all the rifles we could find and many of the packs to
take back with us. I had five rifles slung over my shoulder as
we slowly processed stage by stage back with our groaning
burdens to the battalion, back across the same waterlogged
dykes we had jumped a few hours before. Now and again
one's foot hit against something soft-a corpse. Our bones
were so weary we could hardly carry on, but it had to be
done. Some of the dykes were so broad that armfuls of sticks
and faggots had to be fetched from the wood and thrown in
to make a way across. At times, hearing the movement of
the procession, a voice would call through the darkness:
"Friends, help me. Come and take me back." "We're coming;
we'll take you with us." And any who had no burden went out
in search of the despairing cry to bring him in.
All at once I heard a familiar voice in front: Spiegel's, surely-
Spiegel, commanding A Company. A flood of curses and
then a sobbing, a whimpering like a sick girl. The old East
African veteran. " Here, someone, take these a moment!" In
the darkness a black figure came near, took the great weight
off my shoulders on to his own and in a moment I was
kneeling by Spiegel's side. I struck a match and looked with
horror into the face of a fast dying man. An N.C.O. beside
him said to me. " Several of us wished to stay with him and
get him back, but he raged at us and told us to get away, that
we were wanted more in front. As it was, nothing more could
be done, except an injection of morphia to give him a painless
death. Perhaps that was possible if we took him back with
us. In a few moments another stretcher made with rifles and
canvas was ready, and strong hands lifted on to it, with a
wonderful tenderness, the heavy body heaving from side to
side in its agonies. " Good-night, Spiegel," and in my thoughts
I knew as well as he did we should see each other by
daylight no more.
Exhausted, I lay down for a few moments' rest, and then up
again after the dark forms of my tireless, marvellous men
plodding on ahead. And now other dark forms were coming
towards us. Stretcher-bearers- the regimental band doing a
less cheerful job. "I hope you will find very little to do in front
there. We've got the wounded with us here, but go and look
all the same in case."
Through the darkness came the clink of spades, and low
voices.
"Who's there?"
"A Company."
"What are you doing?"
"Digging in. Battalion orders."
"Is the major anywhere about? "
"He was here a moment ago, and went off to the left."
I went after him, groping my way along behind the line of
black, ghostly shapes working with their spades, and found
him.
" Two sections of B and one of A Company have
rejoined the battalion, sir."
Major von Kleist, a head taller than me, stood facing me in
the darkness, so dark that I couldn't see his features, and
laying his two hands on my shoulders said in a heartbroken
voice: "My dear Bloem, you are now my only support."
"How do you mean, major? You surely don't say-"
" Yes; Count Reventhow is seriously wounded, a bullet
through the shoulder. He remained with his company for
some hours after it, but I've ordered him to go back. Spiegel
is said to have been wounded beyond hope of recovery-"
"I know, major. I've just seen him and had him brought in."
"And Goerdt, commanding D Company, is dead."
I was dumbfounded. "And the other officers? and the men?"
" It's unspeakable, terrible. I've just heard too that Major
Prager, one of the first to enter Tertre, has been killed."
Prager, the gallant commander of the Fusilier battalion, an
East African veteran like Spiegel, with all his bad and
excellent qualities.
" Von Hagen, the adjutant of the regiment, has been
wounded; while of our first battalion, Graser is said to be
dead, Sehmsdorf of A Company wounded, and little Grapow
of the machine-gun company dead. I don't yet know how the
other battalions have fared, but it seems to have been terrible
for them all. What a day, Bloem, perfectly ghastly! "
"And the men?"
"The battalion is all to pieces-my splendid battalion."
and the voice of this kindly, big-hearted man trembled as he
spoke. "I've given orders to entrench 200 yards in front of the
road leading to the wood. Will you see to that while the rest
of the companies get reorganised? You will have to give up
von der Osten, who will take command of A Company.
Chorus will take over C Company, and Lohmann, D
Company."
Three subalterns as company commanders, two of them
officers of the reserve, and my own subalterns all gone.
I listened in silence, anxiously, as the major continued.
"Watch the front very carefully, and send patrols at once up
to the line of the canal. If the English have the slightest
suspicion of the condition we are in they will
counter-attack to-night, and that would be the last straw.
They would send us all to glory. Have bayonets fixed ready,
and every section digging or resting must have a sentry on
watch. Will you go and see to that now? I am relying on
you."
"Right, major."
How inky dark was this night; not a glimmer of light.
So that was our first battle, and this was the result. Our
grand regiment, with all its pride and splendid discipline,
its attack full of dash and courage, and now only a few
fragments left. In God's name, what was the meaning of it
all?
I groped my way back behind the line of black, ghostly
figures still shovelling away, but the trench was a failure.
Two spade-depths down into the meadow and the waterlevel
was reached; after that the water oozed up at once
and filled it. I searched for the new company commanders
and gave them the major's instructions, and together we tried
to get the companies formed up again.
My other section also turned up with Sergeant Schuler.
He and half his section had been kept back as a covering
party for the artillery and had had very few casualties, but
of the rest of the section with Tettenborn only a few
remained alive, their leader having been shot while looking
through his field-glasses. Farewell, friend, you will not be
forgotten.
I began to shiver from head to foot, chilled to the very
marrow in my sopping clothes and with the damp night mist.
From one of the packs brought back I unstrapped a
waterproof cape and put it round me. No sooner done than I
heard another familiar voice through the darkness:
"Captain Bloem! Anyone seen Captain Bloem? "
" Ahlert!" Good for him; and somehow I felt he had brought
something with him, something to comfort us. In a moment a
dark figure stood in front of me, but indistinguishable in this
blackest of nights.
"Here, sir."
"Ahlert, my good Ahlert, have you heard what's happened?"
"I know,sir. It's terrible."
"Thank Heaven, you're all right anyhow," I said, taking his
strong, honest hand in mine. " Did you get much of the fire
back there?"
"Not so bad, sir."
"How are the horses, the cooker, the transport?"
"All safe, sir. We took good care of them, and we're bringing
up coffee now for the company." I heard a clattering of tin
mugs.
"Thanks be to God, coffee, hot coffee! B Company," I called
out, "one man from each section this way."
Miraculous! Coffee, here on the battlefield. Only lukewarm,
naturally, still it was coffee. Ahlert, bless you!
And now for the outposts. Ahlert helped me get the patrols
together. It was no easy matter in this pitch darkness, in the
indescribable confusion, and the men all chilled to the bone,
almost too exhausted to move and with
the depressing consciousness of defeat weighing upon them.
A bad defeat, there could be no gainsaying it; in our first
battle we had been badly beaten, and by the English- by the
English we had so laughed at a few hours before.
I gave the patrols their orders, sending the best N.C.O.'s I
had left with them- WolfF, Boettcher and KraulIss. "If the
English make an attack give the alarm by a volley, and then
move away at once to the right so that we shall have a clear
field of fire." I felt a lump in my throat as these gallant men
went off and disappeared into the night, in the direction of the
enemy. I should have liked to accompany each of the patrols
myself; instead I had to be content to watch them go, a little
lesson in self-control one quickly has to learn in war-time.
I went back to the others, to the line of black, ghostly shapes
still digging. "Now, men, we must chuck this. It's no use. We
can't lie in a trench full of water. Each of you must find as
dry a spot as you can near by and go to sleep."
I was about to lie down myself when I again heard my name
being called. It was Erdmann Graser, the elder brother of the
dead one, and the adjutant of the Fusilier battalion. There he
stood facing me, only recognisable by his voice.
"Have you heard already, Graser?"
"I have, sir." His voice sounded hard and dry.
"Your brother, Graser; that fine, plucky brother of yours."
"Can I see him once more, sir?"
" But how can you? We have retired five or six hundred
yards, and he lies away at the farthest point we reached, only
about a hundred yards from the English position. Besides
you'd never find him, and very likely you'd run into the
enemy's hands on the way. But I can
tell you how he died, and I can imagine no finer death for a
soldier."
And I told the brother the story of his brother's death. I could
not see his face as I related it, but no sound, no interruption
came from his lips, not a murmur till I had finished.
" I'm most grateful to you, sir."
" Good-night, Graser."
" Good-night, sir." A short but firm clasp of my hand and he
was away again into the night. I stretched myself out again
on the dripping wet grass. A few stars were twinkling up
above through the low night-mist overhanging the meadow.
And they made me think of my own far-away constellations-
my wife, my children. If they could see me now; no, it's as
well they can't. Goodnight, my precious ones. In spirit I am
with you, close to you.
I could not sleep. Though all my strength seemed to have left
me and I was dog-tired, yet sleep would not come. I dozed
lightly. Would they attack to-night? Let them, and they'll find
it expensive. Disorganised little rabble though we now were,
we should only sell our lives at a big price.
Suddenly a tremendous burst, like an explosion, not far away
either; a terrifying noise. A few moments later another.
Everyone jumped to their feet. What on earth was it? Certainly
not a gun of any kind. A rumour ran round that it was the
bridges, that the English had blown up the canal bridges.
Surely impossible! The English blow up bridges! Nonsense, it
must have been something else; but what? In trying to answer the question
for myself I must have dozed off again, for when another
loud report woke me, the first light of dawn had arrived. This
time it was the artillery, our own artillery
near Tertre station close by, and they now began to fire
continuously, the whirring noise of the shells fading away
as they sped across the canal southwards, followed by the
faint, dull bursts in the distance. All this fire from our own
guns gave us confidence; it was good to listen to.
Around me my grey men were still snoring away. The dawn
light shed a deathly pallor over their faces, but their
lips moved slightly with each breath. I shuddered with wet
and cold, nevertheless I felt refreshed, a revival of energy.
And I was alive. What joy incredible! Still alive. I wondered
did my loved ones feel that I still
lived. I stretched, my clothes all sticking to me, and then once
more dropped off again, and when I woke the new day was
already glimmering in the east.
xi
THE battalion adjutant, Lieutenant Stumpff, was standing by
me. I got up. In spite of his rosy face I could see how much
he had felt the death of little Grapow, his great friend and
brother-in-law.
" My deepest sympathy, Stumpff."
"Thank You, sir." And then he continued in more official
tones: "Battalion orders are as follows: The enemy has
evacuated aIl his positions on this side of the canal during the
night and blown up the bridges behind him. The Fusilier
battalion is already deploying and will advance on the canal.
The ist Battalion will assemble in column of route and march
to the bridges at St Ghislain: companies in the following order,
B, A, C, D."
I listened speechless with amazement. Positions evacuated!
Bridges blown up! Advance on the canal! Incredible. And so
the explosions during the night were explained.
"Do 1 understand you rightly, Stumpff? Has the enemy
actually retired?"
"No doubt about it, sir."
"Well, I'm damned! Then things aren't so bad after all."
"It's too early to judge the situation for certain," he said.
"Perhaps it's only a ruse to entice us over the canal. "
" In any case, we're going on forwards, Stumpff! That's good
enough."
In a few moments all were on their legs and bustling about.
Ahlert was again on the spot with pailfuls of more
lukewarm coffee. How good it was too! Waterproofs rolled,
coats buttoned, belts tightened up, and in five minutes the
battalion was ready to move off. Our artillery fire had
stopped, no sound of battle anywhere, peace, perfect peace
once more-and we were advancing. Marvellous! The
companies, yesterday at full war strength, were now scarcely
at peace strength, yet they
were going- forwards! And the sun, the giver of health and
life, yesterday clouded over, was now rising higher
and higher into a cloudless sky.
Along the borders of the village engineers were digging,
digging hard, digging fresh graves, apparently countless
fresh graves. Looking across we could see that our own dead
had already disappeared into the cold swampy soil of the
enemy's country. There were English dead too, gathered
together here and there in small heaps in the village streets.
They were evidently to take second place in the burial
programme. In a sense we were glad to
see them, as it increased our self-confidence. Quite enough
had happened to depress us.
The 2nd Battalion had assembled on the main road, and as
we marched past them we greeted our still living friends,
hearing news from them of more and more casualties.
Otherwise the march was silent. The patrols sent out the
evening before joined in the column as we approached the
canal. Sergeant Boettcher, in making his
report to me, said that the firing that had enfiladed us all the
afternoon from the strip of wood on the right, and which we
took to be our own people firing at us by mistake, had been
the enemy all the time. He had been through
the copse and had found a sandbag emplacement for a
machine gun in it. The dirty dogs! All the same we
should have suspected it and taken better precautions
during the advance.
Then they apparently did know something about war, these cursed
English, a fact soon confirmed on all sides. Wonderful, as we
marched on, how they had converted every house, every wall into a
little fortress: the experience no doubt of old soldiers gained in a
dozen colonial wars; possibly even some of the butchers of the
Boers were among them. And now they'd gone, left all this work,
rather than wait for our bayonets and the butts of our rifles.
The effect of our artillery had been shattering. Houses shelled to
ruins everywhere. We saw for the first time war in all its frightfullness,
its destruction, and devastation. Our field-howitzers had torn holes
as big as windows through houses and factory walls; the roofs had
been torn off as though by a hurricane. Well done, the guns!
Now we were at the famous canal. The bits of the blown-up bridges
were lying about all round, but our engineers were already at work
putting a pontoon bridge across for the artillery. Close by, a narrow
iron footbridge had been left that could be swung across the
brackish water of the canal. This we now had to cross in single file-
and a long time it took. As each section got across, it piled arms on the
far side and rested. We heard that the 3rd Battalion of our sister-
regiment, the 52nd, had already crossed with two companies of our
Fusilier battalion. Our 2nd Battalion was to cross the canal about
1000 yards farther east.
In a seemingly interminable procession, man by man, the companies
continued to cross, assembling opposite the railway station of St.
Ghislain, which lay on our right
in profound sleep and badly knocked about. Another order now
arrived from regimental headquarters: "The enemy has taken up a
fresh position on the rising ground south of Hornu. The brigade is to
attack. Battalions will take up preparatory positions as follows: 3rd
Battalion 52nd Regiment with its right on the main street, 1st Battalion
12th Grenadiers on its immediate left, 2nd and Fusilier Battalion 12th
Grenadiers to follow in echelon."
From now on as each company crossed the bridge it was to go to its
position for the advance on Hornu. The deployment for the attack
was to take place from the southern exits of the village as soon as the
assembly was complete.
Good! B Company was ready. "Stand-to." The men unpiled arms and
then we were off again. "March at ease." The morning sun blazed
down upon the deserted streets and squares of this little industrial
town. It looked strange to see all the houses and shops barred and
shuttered, and stranger still the traces of our bombardment, the
smashed-in roofs covering the streets with broken tiles and chimney-
pots. At a street corner, in front of a grocer's shop, the door of which
had been smashed open with an axe, stood General Sontag, our
brigade commander. Busy hands kept passing out to him from inside
masses of packets of chocolates, biscuits, and cakes, which he
distributed to the troops as they passed. A hundred greedy hands
stretched out to him, and greedy eyes from a hundred hungry faces
tried to catch his.
But listen! Over there to the south the noise of battle was beginning
again. Rifle-fire already, and our deployment hardly begun; it would
be hours before we were ready to attack, thanks to that confounded
footbridge. Even as we listened the firing increased in intensity.
Surely the 52nd hadn't started without waiting for us.
It would be utter madness. The noise of battle drew us
forward magnetically and we hurried on, the sweat pouring off
us.
Once away from the houses we were able to get a view to the
south, and saw a number of giant black pyramids standing out
against the sky. Being a son of the industrial west I knew what
they were, these conical hills; they were slag-heaps of mine
refuse. We had passed from the agricultural northern district
of the Hennegau into the mining district, and the town of St
Ghislain, as also the village of Hornu which is practically the
continuation of it southwards, bore the stamp of their trade,
even though the inhabitants had departed. A mass of rough
brick buildings, all dirty, all joyless, and all most unlovable.
A shot suddenly, right into the column, from quite close. Damn
it! another, and another. They were coming not from the
houses close to the road but from some higher buildings
behind. Perhaps civilians, perhaps English stragglers, perhaps
both! Yet another, the dirty dogs! Right in the middle of the
company, and more still; here and there suddenly the clatter of
a rifle on the cobbles and a grenadier, clutching the air with his
hands, collapsed in a heap on the road. But there was no time
to search the building or even to set fire to it, for at that
moment Lieutenant Maron, now adjutant of the regiment in
place of Hagen, wounded yesterday, galloped towards us from
the front, the sparks literally flying from the cobbled stones
beneath his horse's hoofs as he came. In a shrill voice and out
of breath he shouted: "The 52nd heavily engaged in front-need
support immediately please hurry on!" and then he spurred his
horse on again to tell the others behind.
Almost at the same moment the air just above our heads was
rent by a howling scream that rushed straight down the narrow
street between the houses and then
burst with a great crack, like the splitting of big timber, just
behind the last section of fours, scattering a hail of shot into
the cobbles, sendinig up more sparks and a cloud of dust and
chips of stone. Shrapnel! the first we had met.. And looking at
my men I saw many a face turn pale that yesterday had
smiled defiantly as the machine-gun fire traversed to and fro
along the line. Another tearing scream, and another, four in
close succession-gorr!-gorr!-gorr!-gorr! and four bursts crash!-crash!-crash!-crash!
above our heads, but this time on to
the roofs of the houses, and a rain of broken slates rattled
down on to our helmets and shoulders. A most devilish,
damnable feeling! In a moment the company had moved to the
left side of the road, close under the houses to get what cover
they could, the shells coming if anything from that direction. It
delayed the march at a moment when we were needing wings
to get us forward fast enough.
" Come on, lads, didn't you hear? Our friends in front are in
danger. Now then, we'll run for it, and whoever hangs back
and leaves his captain is a damned coward! Double!" The
word of command pulled the flagging ones together, the iron
discipline that had been drilled into them conquered. Their
rifles over their right shoulder and holding their bayonets with
their left hand in drill-book manner my men trotted along
behind me, while more shrapnel screamed above us, to right
and to left of us, bursting and scattering their loads of bullets
with a noise like the hounds of hell vomiting. Trapp-trapp-trapp-
trapp! the steady footfalls of the hob-nailed boots of my men
resounded along the empty street in the intervals of the din, the
rifle and artillery fire increasing continually as we approached
the battle, shrapnel bullets, rifle bullets, showers of broken tiles,
chimney-pots, bits of stones, bricks, clouds of dust,
the howling and screaming of the shells, and yet trapp-trapp-
trapp-trapp! we kept on through it all.
At the crossing of a side street with the main street we were
following stood some of the brigade and regimental staff.
General Sontag, here already, watched us keenly, with
Colonel von Reuter, amazingly calm and utterly unperturbed
as a shower of broken tiles snowed down from the roofs
above. Still doubling at the head of my company I saluted with
a feeling of intense pride. " Down there to the left! " the
general called out, pointing with his hand. "Prolong the left of
the 52nd! "
"I understand, general!" And in a few long strides I was at
the head of my men again and leading them down the narrow
side-street. Here, we were covered from fire from the south
by the houses, workmen's dwellings, miserable, dirty-looking
hovels, and all shuttered up. Occasionally shot rattled on the
roofs, but most of the shells passed over the top of us and
away to the left.
Now the street came to an end, in place of the houses a long
factory wall bordered the right-hand side, rifle and machine-
gun bullets buzzing and humming over it in a countless stream,
interspersed at short intervals with shrapnel bursts. Ahead, at
a half-open iron gate at the wall end, stood Lieutenant
Lohmann with a dozen men of D Company, of which he was
now company commander.
"What's happening, Lohmann?"
" We can't get on any farther yet, sir. The fire's hellish; no one
could live in it in the open." He seemed to be right. I looked
back and saw two small groups of sweating, dusty, panting
Grenadiers behind me.
"What's this? Where's the rest of the company?"
" Don't know, sir," answered an N.C.O. (I had no officers
now left with the company.) I was furiously disappointed.
Four-fifths of the company to have left their commander in
the lurch! And my own company!
Surely, not possible! Luckily one of my cyclists was there,
and I sent him back to fetch the rest. At the moment there
was nothing more to be done except to carry out the order to
prolong the left of the 52nd with the few men I had. But,
where was the 52nd? I peeped round the gate-post, and drew
back again very quickly as a bullet whistled past my nose.
Damn it! Had we to go on through that? "You're quite right,
Lohmann, it's distinctly windy out there."
Nevertheless we had to find out where we were to go, or at
any rate where the 52nd was. To the right the ground was flat
and open at first, then rose gradually up to a ridge beyond
which was obviously the English position. From where we
stood we could see the backs of the houses along the main
village street we had just left, which rose on to the ridge in its
southward course. This row of houses, with strips of cabbage-
patches behind, stopped before the road topped the ridge, and
there, just beyond and on the ridge itself, lay sure enough a
firing-line of grey figures; that must be them, our hard-
pressed sister regiment. Hard-pressed they were too, for
small clouds of coal-black dust were continually spurting up
along the line- bursting shrapnel. We had to get to them,
somehow.
To prolong the left of the line, however, our way was blocked
by an enormous conical slag-heap, the base of it reaching
close up to the factory gate. If only we could get to the top of
it, I thought, what a perfect field of fire we should have. The
English had obviously done this, for most of their machine-gun
and rifle-fire was coming from the upper slopes of two more
giant slag-heaps, the tops of which appeared well above the
skyline of the ridge. Let us try them!
Soon we two officers and the two dozen men, all we now had,
were starting to clamber up the steep slope of rubble. We dug
our toes and hands into the crunching, crumbling coal-black
slag, but it was no good. At every step up it gave beneath
one's feet and slid down; the whole surface of the pyramid
seemed the same, and so we abandoned the idea, streaming
with sweat again and breathless with the effort.
The cyclist had now returned, and reported that the general
had called the company back, just after we turned off from the
main street, and told them to go straight on to the end of the
village: the order, however, had not reached the head of the
company, nor me, and so the remainder had stopped, gone
back, and continued up the main street, Sergeant Schifler
taking command of them. In God's name, then, let us make
straight across to the main street again and find the others. I
decided to rush for it, through the factory yard and then across
a bit of open ground to the backs of the houses at the village
end. Shrapnel bullets, rifle bullets hummed and whistled all
round and about us, the noise enough to drive one crazy, now
one man tumbling over, then another, and another. At last,
clambering over a rotten wooden fence and crossing a
miserable cabbage-patch of a garden, and along a path
between the houses we were in the main street again. Here a
few groups of Grenadiers were working forward by short
rushes from house to house in brief intervals in the firing. But
the enemy naturally guessed that it would be from here, from
the village end, that the reinforcements would move up to
support the front line on the ridge, and he kept it well
smothered in showers of lead, almost without a break.
Most strange it was to see these houses, so recently inhabited,
shot asunder, knocked to pieces. It was as if they themselves
had suddenly gone mad and begun to spit out stones, dirt, bits
of iron bedsteads, roofing slates, deliberately over us and over
the memory of their late inhabitants. The whole atmosphere
was impregnated with a rusty-coloured smoke, with brick dust
that stuck in one's lungs, and filled one's eyes, heavy and
burning after an almost sleepless night.
At last a breathing space, a moment to look round. To the left
of the street we could now see quite distinctly the firing-line of
the 52nd which we were to prolong. It was slightly bent back,
its right flank towards the enemy, and into it the shrapnel were
still pouring their mass of bullets. Smoke, dirt, and rubble were
spurting up all along it. Could it be possible that any single man
in that line still lived? A few brave ones now rushed out from
the cover of the end houses to support the line gorr!-gorr!-gorr!
screamed the shells-crash !-crash! -crash! as they burst in the
middle of them, and not a single one of the little group was left
standing.
Simple madness, then, to try and get forward like that. Was
there no other way of approach? I looked at my map. Yes, a
railway appeared to run through a cutting near by. If we could
get into that? What do you think, Lohmann? Yes- agreed.
Good. "Now, men, all out, hard as you can, follow me-rush! "
We raced over a stretch of open ground, threw ourselves
down during the bursts of fire, then up and on again, reached
the edge of the cutting, slid and jumped down its steep side,
and then stood on the track, for a moment wonderfully
protected from fire but also from seeing anything. The next
thing was to climb up the other side and see what could be
done. It was very steep. I clambered up a little way, then on
all fours, using my sword-scabbard as a stick to
push myself up, but I couldn't reach the top: exhausted I slid
back on to the track. As it happened I had no need to be
ashamed of myself for none of my Grenadiers, though twenty
years younger, were able to do it. I noticed there seemed to
be very few of them with me, only four of my own company,
about a dozen from the rest of the battalion, and a few 52nd
men. Lieutenant Lohmann had vanished, and, instead,
Lieutenant Count Westarp had joined our little group, the left
sleeve of his coat slit up by a bullet, his wrist slightly grazed
and bound up with a blood-stained handkerchief.
We were all now back on the rails again, panting and dripping
with perspiration, not a breath left in our lungs. "Well, lads,
that's no good. " I saw they were all as done up as myself,
and I decided to have a breather before going on.
" Rossberg, you still look full of life, see if you can get up the
slope, and let us know what's beyond."
The lad made much ado, but he got there, and then called
down: "The 52nd are on the ridge just in front, firing like mad
straight ahead."
"Where are the enemy? "
"Can't see anything of them, sir."
"Thanks, Rossberg. Then call out to the nearest 52nd man that
there are 2 officers and 15 men here at their disposal ready to
support them when they want us or if the enemy attacks."
After a while came the reply: "They say, all right, sir."
Then we all lay down full length in the grass-covered ditch by
the side of the track. Thank God, some rest! an oasis in the
storm of the battle! A few moments under cover, a few
moments in cooling shade! What bliss! And yet at the same
time I felt it was clearly wrong to allow oneself this respite
fifty yards behind the firing-line where every rifle, every man,
must be urgently needed.
But for the moment I-simply-couldn't-go-on. A comfortable
feeling of helplessness overcame me, I was prostrate, my
limbs declined to function. I called myself every name
imaginable-sluggard, useless rotter, coward- but it made no
difference, the machine wouldn't work, wouldn't even start.
And my Grenadiers looked equally satisfied, equally content to
stay where they were. Within five minutes many of them
were snoring, mouths wide open, and above us across the top
of the cutting, the hurricane of lead and iron still raged with
unabated fury. Shells, whining, howling, rushed past above us,
bullets whistled, hummed, and bumbled up and down the scale
of the whole range of insect noises from the soft whirring of a
dragon-fly to the loud buzzing of an angry cockchafer. They
beat against the steel telegraph posts with a clear, sharp
"pink," leaving a small, circular black spot on the grey painting,
they cut the wires one after the other all hanging hopelessly
entangled from the posts. And yet, just underneath, there we
lay cosy and snug on the soft grass, so cool, so safe, so
peaceful. How nice, how pleasant it was! Let the others shoot
and fight if they want to-I simply can't. No! you lazy,
worthless bit of carrion, you -simply-can't!
" Sir! the enemy are going back, sir"
"What! what's that! The enemy going back? Coming
forwards, you mean-"
" No, sir! The enemy are going back, the 52nd say so! "
Rossberg shouted down from the top of the cutting.
" Get up, everyone! Quick, come on! " We scrambled up
somehow, sideways, anyways, to the top, all idea of
exhaustion blown away as if by magic. Behind me came the
snorers of a moment before now keen as a troop of devils.
Was it possible we had arrived too late for the victory after
having slept through the battle? What a thought! We ran on up
the gentle incline, took
forward with us the weak supports of the 52nd, lying flat on their
stomachs in a slight fold of the ground waiting the order to
advance, and then came to the ridge along which the firing line had
been. From here we could see a line of khaki-brown figures
disappearing hastily among the slag-heaps, sheds, and trees ahead
of us.
" Come on, lads, hurry up! Keep them on the run!" and taking
every one on with us as we went, we doubled on in a jumbled mass,
battalions, companies all mixed up together. Count Westarp and I
were now joined by Lieutenant Wildegans, another of the regiment,
a splendid fellow, always cheerful, thoroughly efficient, a typical
12th Grenadier.
"Get along, lads, no stopping, or they'll turn round and start firing
again." We crossed the ridge and the bit of flat ground beyond, and
came to the enemy's position, jumping the English trenches in
which some of the dead were crouching life-like, their pale cheeks
still on the butts of their rifles as if firing. On! On! No time to wait!
And then suddenly a terrible thing happened.
From behind us, from where we had come, a screaming, tearing
noise, followed by a piercing crash, then another, a third, a fourth,
and the last right in the middle of the densely packed group of men
about me all hurrying on without thought of keeping extended out.
Since that day I have seen enough gruesome sights to make any
man's blood curdle, but even now I still shudder at the thought of
that moment. The great shout of terror from everyone, the yells of
pain from two dozen throats around me, the look of open-eyed
horror on every face, all mingled with the continued tearing,
screaming, and bursting of the shells, and last but not least, my own
heart almost standing still in agonised. despair; never shall I forget
that moment.
What had happened? In a flash it was only too clear. Our guns,
which after the restoration of the bridges would by now be across
the canal, must have at once opened fire on the enemy's position,
which though invisible to them would have been very exactly
described. These, then, were their first shots on to the English line,
excellent shots too, only it so happened that our infantry by their
own efforts had meanwhile stormed the position, a fact also beyond
the sight and ken of the artillery observers in the low ground.
Something had to be done at once, quick! The first was to
understand the situation, the second to act, to save what was left to
be saved, to clear out, not backwards nor forwards- both useless-
then sideways it must be; anyhow, to clear out. "All follow me!" I
yelled madly; Westarp and Wildegans repeated: "Follow the
captain! " And sideways we fled, looking desperately for any scrap
of cover. There! A slight hollow, not much, but just enough
perhaps to shelter us from our own shells. "Down!" and all
collapsed, many burying their pale, terrified faces in the short grass,
hiding their heads in their folded arms as if instinctively to protect
themselves. Death coming from the enemy's shells is expected, part
of the bargain of war, but coming from the mistaken fire of one's
own artillery it is beyond the pale- utterly devilish!
Only just in time. Twenty yards to our left the little white whiffs of
smoke of the shrapnel burst every ten seconds; a little farther and
we would be done for, even yet, but no! They gradually moved away
to the left again. The enemy's artillery now opened again a rapid fire,
shell after shell in quick succession, high over our stretched out
bodies, away over the ridge on which our firing-line had been and
beyond, evidently in an effort to silence our batteries. And once
again, as I lay there, that vile lassitude of mind and body stole over
me. Actually I knew well I should be up and on after the retreating
enemy in
spite of shells, in spite of our own artillery fire, risking everything,
so long as the enemy were kept on the move. But, I simply could
not. Death hurtled past, bullets and shells, from the front only a
hand's-breadth above me, from behind about twenty yards breadth
to the left, but here I was sheltered from both directions, for the
moment I was practically safe. What a relief, what comfort!
The men with us of the 52nd and of our own regiment, the 12th,
smiled thankfully out of their grey-green faces, out of their still
terror-stricken eyes, at us three officers: "Lucky we have the
officers with us," said one: "Our's is such a silly fool he wouldn't
know what to have done in that chimossel," said another.
"The captain will stay with us now ? " asked one of the 52nd. " Our
company officers were all killed on the ridge back there." Slightly
abashed but none the less pleased with this unmerited confidence,
I smiled back: "Yes, lads, we'll stick together now till the battle's
over."
Time slipped by, was it a quarter of an hour, or an hour, or hours, I
can't say! From in front, from behind, the storm remained unabated,
as if mankind had usurped the powers of nature so great was the
noise. Gradually, however, the picture changed. The little white
whiffs of smoke to our left were no more and the music was
different, we could hear the report of the discharges from the guns
behind and the tearing scream of the shells as they passed
overhead, but the noise of the bursts was no longer audible. The
solution of this riddle was obvious; our artillery had at last tumbled
to the fact that the enemy had gone and had lengthened their range
accordingly. After a few minutes the enemy's artillery fire died
down, the great concert, the colossal organ recital above our
heads, ceased. We got up, stood upright, stretched our aching
knees. I felt dizzy, giddy, almost intoxicated with exhaustion.
We had naturally lost touch with the enemy, and we
now looked about us at the rows of miserable workmen's cottages
with here and there small clumps of trees that seemed to have
stayed by mistake in the midst of all this overgrown home of
industry with its slag-heaps, mineshafts, dirty sheds and buildings,
and great chimneys with no flag of smoke waving from their tops. I
had a feeling as if this second day of fighting- actually, God knows
only of suffering for us, as my men had scarcely fired a shot- had
taken place inside a gigantic factory.
" Come on, lads! Forwards, we must get in touch again! " And we
started off once more, trudged on in groups without any formation,
haphazardly southwards through the chaos of conical slag-heaps,
workmen's dwellings, sheds, and cabbage-patches, all now at peace
again. Forwards! On through it all, trusting that we would find each
other, find our own battalions, our own companies later as we went.
In a hollow by the side of a road stood a solitary house and on it
the inscription: "Estaminet." Several field grey gentlemen were
standing outside the door. It drew us like magic, this distant smell
of something to drink. And actually our intuition was correct. Up
the dark steps leading from the cellar invisible hands handed up the
most precious gifts of Paradise- bottles of all shapes and sizes filled
with every kind of liquid. Like a big sponge, one's dried-up inside
absorbed, lapped up every drop poured into it. Delicious, exquisite!
By degrees we began to sort ourselves out, to find our own places
again. Large groups of my own company started to turn up led by
N.C.O.'s or senior privates. My faithful staff too, Sauermann,
Niestrawski, Pohlenz, somewhat ashamed of themselves. Today for
the first time they had not kept by me. They protested it was not
their fault. "It was like this, sir-" "Yes, lads, I'll believe you, you
needn't tell me. But don't let it happen again."
I gathered together my own little army and we fell in with the
column. The noise of battle had now ceased, only at times in
the distance a rattle of musketry would begin and then as
quickly die down again. We marched on southwards after
the enemy and heaven knows how, but after a while the
battalion was all together again, with the major at its head
complaining that his adjutant, Lieutenant Stumpff, had been
wounded. There, too, was von Reuter, our stern regimental
commander. I reported to him that our own artillery had fired
at us and caused us heavy losses. He thought for a moment,
his face utterly unperturbed, and then answered quite calmly:
"The Japanese artillery very frequently fired on their own
infantry if they had advanced too rashly. They excused it by
saying that it was better that the artillery fire should put out of
action a few sections of their own infantry than that it should
cease altogether for fear of doing so." So be it.
Adjutants flitted here and there and reorganised the
wandering host into a semblance of order. After half an hour
the entire regiment was assembled. A roll-call was taken by
companies, and the losses were seen to be incomparably less
than on the previous day. We had halted and piled arms near
a factory that had been considerably damaged by shell-fire ;
the roof smashed in and a high iron shaft bent and splintered
like matchwood. Again, by some miracle, the field-cookers
were on the spot, and Ahlert, his face beaming all over,
handed me a tin plate full of beautifully smelling soup. Good
God! When was it-my last meal? Midday yesterday. I had
eaten nothing for twenty-eight hours. Longer than that, surely,
since our hurriedly finished meal in the village street at
Baudour, eaten so innocently, so unsuspecting of what lay just
ahead of us. It seemed an eternity.
The sun was already lowering in the cloudless August sky
when we fell in again and marched on. The horses had come
up and I now rode; glorious! to have one's tired limbs carried
for one the rest of the day. The battle was over. We were
marching on a good high road in column of fours, in perfect
peace towards the south-west. For any who wished to talk
there was plenty to talk about. Suddenly, rifle shots, bullets
whizzed over the column. Yes! from that villa on the hill over
there with the windows shuttered. The major told me to send
a section against it. I detailed Sergeant Schuler. He extended
his men, reached the house unopposed, and the fire from it
ceased. Soon smoke and flames belched out from the
windows and roof-tops, and whoever remained hidden inside
would do no more harm.
Once again the march continued in profound peace, the peace
of a summer evening all about us. Only here and there a
column of smoke rising skywards, or an occasional gunshot in
the distance. Now and again, lying in the ditch, was a dead
man, stiff and staring, like a wax figure, a dying horse, a
smashed-up bicycle, a broken-down motor car. Many of the
factories all around showed the marks of our shells, one of
them also, very clearly, the skill of our enemy in the ways of
war; the massive brick wall of the main building, itself proof
against field artillery, had been loopholed all along to give
accommodation for two batteries of guns.
We were all tired to death, and the column just trailed along
anyhow. I sat on my war-horse like a bundle of wet washing;
no clear thought penetrated my addled brain, only memories
of the past two appalling days, a mass of mental pictures
insanely tangled together that revolved eternally inside it.
What had actually happened since we left Baudour? None
attempted to explain; a sad melancholy for all the dead friends
seemed to pervade
us all, strangely mixed with a hazy feeling of pleasure still to be in the
land of the living oneself, still to be able to fill one's lungs with the
air of a wonderful golden evening, still to be the master of one's
weary limbs, still to feel a horse's back between one's legs.
It was already getting dusk as we entered a small town called, by the
map, Dour. At first the inhabitants hung about down the side
streets, evidently frightened, but as no one took any notice of them
they came nearer and got into conversation. They said the English
had gone through the place in crowds away to the south. We had
halted in the market square under some trees and piled arms,
everyone at once lying full length on the ground exhausted.
Suddenly there was a commotion as a car drove up into the square
among us, bearing the flag of a general officer.
"Come round the car, everyone!" and standing upright in it was
General Lochow, our Corps commander, his ruddy face, with its
small white moustache, looking fresh and vigorous. "Grenadiers!" he
called out, "you have fought like tigers. You have shown the enemy
so clearly what a Brandenburger can do that he has bolted, with his
tail well between his legs. You will have seen, too, by the fieldworks
they had made, that you were up against war-experienced, seasoned
troops. In spite of that you have driven them out of all their carefully
constructed defences, and sent them flying. In doing so you have
had heavy losses yourselves, but you have added another victory
to the famous colours of your regiment, a victory worthy to rank side
by side with the immortal success of your fathers at Spicheren. I
shall see to it that your deeds come to the notice of our Emperor and
Commander-in-Chief, and he will be indeed proud of his
Brandenburg Grenadiers. And
now on to more battles ahead of us, to more victories, with three
cheers for the Emperor! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!"
It was a full-throated shout from well-filled lungs such as I'd never
heard nor joined in before; nevertheless, as the much-respected
general waved his hand to us and drove away, we all looked at each
other slightly disconcerted, almost shamefaced, mingled with our
feelings of great elation. What! was that called a victory? Had we
really won a big, important victory? Undoubtedly we had advanced
ten miles southwards since our midday meal yesterday in Baudour,
and the enemy who had tried to stop us had gone. . . . But otherwise
the only impressions that remained in our dizzy brains were of
streams of blood, of pale-faced corpses, of confused chaos, of
aimless firing, of houses in smoke and flame, of ruins, of sopping
clothes, of feverish thirst, and of limbs exhausted, heavy as lead. So
that was victory! Amazing! And yet it must be, the general had said
so.
We sat for a long time in groups in the street on chairs brought for
us out of their houses by the inhabitants. From a grocer's shop near
by a pretty, laughing Belgian girl served us with chocolates,
peppermints, and cigarettes, and the place was soon filled to
overflowing with field-grey men, and completely sold out. It was
dark before our billets were allotted. My company was given the
schoolhouse, the sections fitting very comfortably into the big
classrooms, whilst I and my senior N.C.O.'s, Sergeant Schuler and
Esche, were given beds in the schoolmaster's house. Guarded by my
new servant, Grychta (Zock had been absent since yesterday,
whether dead or wounded no one could tell me), I got between
sheets once more, and lying there I was filled with great emotion at
the thought of having experienced my first real battle and being still
alive. Yes, my beloved precious ones-I'm still alive. And in the deep
silence of the night I gave thanks.