BOOK 2

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.. ERNST JUNGER

Storm of Steel

Translated with an Introduction by MICHAEL H OFMANN

PENGUIN BOOK S

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PEN GU IN @ C LA SS I CS ST O RM OF STEEL

ERNST lONGER was born in H eidel berg in 1895. H e ran awa y from schoo l to enl ist in the Fore ign Legion and in 1914 volun- teered to join the Ge rma n army. He fought throughout the war and recorded his experiences in seve ra l books, most famous ly in In StIlhlgewittern (Stonn of Steel), While admi red by the Nazis, he remained critica l of them and through novels such as On the Marble Cliffs (1939) sought to understand the impasse into which Germa ny was heading. Throu ghout the Nazi per iod he was a controversial "inner emigrant, " distanced from the regime yet only obliquely in opposition. H is most famous late r books include Heliopolis (1949), The Glass Bees (1957), Eumeswil (1977), Aladdin's Problem (1983) , and A Dangerous Encounter (1985). He died in 1998.

MICHA£L H OF MA NN has translated joseph Roth, Hena Mu ller, ZOe j e nn y, Wim Wenden, Wolfgang Koeppen, and Fra nz Kafka. His own books include Corona, Corona and Behind the Lines. He also coedited, with j ames Ladun, After Ovid .

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STORM OF STEEL

pouring water or coffee from a canteen into a snoring sleeper's mouth.

On the evening of 22. April, we marched out of Preny and covered over twenty miles to the village of Hattonchatel, without registering any footsoreness, in spite of ou'r heavy packs. We pitched camp in the woods on the right of the fam ous Grande Tranchee. All the indications were that we would be fighting in the morning. Bandage packs were issued, extra tins of beef, and signalling flags for the gunners.

I sat up for a long tim e that night, in the foreboding eve of battle mood of which soldiers at all times have left report, on a nee stump clustered round with blue anemones, before I crept over the ranks of my comrades to my tent. I had tangled dreams, in which a principal role was played by a skull.

In the morning, when I told Priepke about it, he said he hoped it was a French skull.

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Les Eparges

The tender green of young leaves shimmered in the flat light. We followed hidden, twisting paths towards a narrow gorge behind the front line. We had been told that the 76th was to attack after a bombardment of only twenty minutes, and that we were to be held in reserve. On the dot of noon, our artillery launched into a furious bombardment that echoed and re-ec hoed through the wooded hollows. For the first time, we heard what was meant by the expression 'drumfire'. We sat perched on our haversacks, idle and excited. A runner plunged through to the company commander. Brisk exchange. 'The three nearest trenches have fallen to us, and six field guns have been captured!' Loud cheers rang out. A feeling of up-and-at-'em.

At last, the longed-for order.ln a long line, we moved forward, towards the pattering of heavy rifle fire. It was getting se rious . To the side of the forest path, dull thumps came down in a clump of firs, bringing down a rain of branches and soil. One nervous soldier threw himself to the ground, while his comrades laughed uneasily. Then Death's call slipped through the ranks: ' Ambu- lancemen co the Front! '

A little later, we passed the spot that had been hit. The casual- ties had already been rem oved. Bloody scraps of doth and flesh had been left on bushes around the crater - a strange and dreadful sight that put me in mind of the butcher-bird that spikes its prey on thorn bushes.

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STORM OF STEE L

Troops were advanci ng at the double along the Grande Tranchee. Casualties huddled by the roadside, whimpering for water, prisoners carrying stretchers came panting back, limbers clattered through fire at a ga llop. On either side, shells spattered the soft ground, heavy boughs came crashing down. A dead horse lay across the middle of the path, with giant wounds, its steaming entrails beside it. [n among the great, bloody scenes there was a wild, unsuspected hilarity. A.bearded reservist leaned against a tree: 'On you go now, boys, Frenc hie's on the run!'

We entered the battle-tramped realm of the infantryman. The area round the jumping-off position had been deforested by shells. In the ripped-up no man's land lay the victims of the attack, still facing the enemy; their grey tunics barely stood out from the ground. A gia nt form with red, blood-spattered beard stared fixedly at the sky, his fingers clutching the spongy ground. A young man tossed in a shell-crater, his features a lready yellow with his impending death. He seemed not to want to be looked at; he gave us a cross shrug and pulled his coat over his head, and lay still.

Our marching column broke up. Shells came continually hiss- ing towards us in long, flat arcs, lightnings whirled up the forest floor. The shrill toot offield artillery shells I had heard quite often even before Orainville; it didn't strike me as being particularly dangerous. The loose order in which our company now adva nced over the broken field had something oddly calming about it; I thought privately that this baptism of fire busi ness was actually far less dangerous than I'd expected. In a curious failure of comprehension, I looked alertly about me for possible targets for a ll this artillery fire, not, apparently, realizing that it was actually ourselves that the enemy gunners were trying for all th ey were worth to hit.

'Ambulancemen !' We had our first fatality. A shrapnel ball had ripped through rifleman Stolter's carotid artery. Three packets of lint were sodden with blood in no time. In a matter of seconds

LES EPARGES

he had bled to death. Next to us, a couple of ordn ance .pieces loosed off shells, drawing more fire down on us from the enemy. An artillery lieurenant, who was in the vanguard, looking for wounded, was thrown to the ground by a colu!llfl of steam that spurted in front of him. He got to his feet and made his way back with notable calm. We took him in with gleaming eyes.

It was getting dark when we received orders to advance further. The way now led through dense undergrowth shot through by shells, into an endless communication trench along which the French had dropped their packs as they ran. Approaching the village of Les Eparges, without having any troops in front of us, we were forced to hew defensive positions in solid rock. Finally, I slumped into a bush and fell asleep. At moments, half asleep, I was aware of artillery shells, ours or theirs, describing thei r ellipses in a trail of sparks.

'Come on, man, get up! We're mov ing ouel' I woke up in dew-sodden grass. Through a stuttering swathe of machine-gun fire, we plunged back inca our communication trench, and moved to a position on the edge of the wood pre vio usly held by the French. A sweetish smell and a bundle hanging in the wire caught my attention. In the rising mist, I leaped out of the trench and found a shrunken French corpse. Flesh like mouldering fish gleamed greenishly through spli tS in the shredded uniform. Turn- ing round, I took a step back in horror: next to me a figu re was crouched against a tree. It still had glea ming French leather harness, and on its back was a fully packed haversack, topped' by a round mess-tin. Empty eye-sockets and a few strands of hair on the bluish-black skull indicated that the man was nOt among the living. There was another sitting down, slumped forward towards his feet, as though he had just collapsed. All around were dozens more, roned, dried, stiffened to mummies, frozen in an eerie dance of death. The French must have spent months in the proximity of their fallen comrades, without burying them.

During the morning, the sun gradually pierced the fog, and

STORM OF STEEL

spread "a pleasant warmth. After I'd slept on the bottom of the trench for a while, curiosity impelled me to inspect the unoccu- pied trench we'd captured the day before. It was littered with great piles of provisions, ammunition, equipment, weapons, let- ters and newspapers. The dugouts were like looted junk-~hops. In amongst it all were the bodies of the brave defenders, their guns still poking out through the shooting-slits. A headless torso was jammed in some shot-up beams. Head and neck were gone, white cartilage gleamed out of reddish- black flesh. I found it difficult to fathom. Next to it a very young man la y on his back with glassy eyes and fists still aiming. A peculiar feeling, looking into dead, questioning eyes - a shudd er that I never quite lost in the course of the war. His pockets had been turned inside ou t, and his emptied wallet lay beside him.

Unmolested by any fire, I st ro lled along the ravaged trench. It was the short mid-morning lull that was often to be my only moment of respite on the battlefield. I used it to take a good look at everything. The unfamiliar weapons, the darkness of the dugouts, the colourful contents of the haversacks, it was all new and strange to me. I pocketed some French ammunition, undid a silky-soft tarpaulin and picked up a cam een wr apped in blue cloth, only to chuck it all away again a few steps further along. The sight of a beautiful striped shirt,lying next to a ripped-ope n officer's va li se, sed uced me to strip off my uniform a nd get into some fresh linen. I relished the pleasant ti ckJe of clean cloth against my skin.

Thus kitted out, I looked for a sunny spOt in the trench, sat down on a beam-end, and with my bayonet opened a round can of meat for my breakfast. Then Ilit my pipe, an d browsed through some of the many French magazines that lay scattered about, some of them, as I saw from the dates, only sent to the trenches on the eve o f Verdun.

Not without a certain shudder, I remember that during my breakfast I tried to unscrew a curio us little contraption that I

LES EPARGES

found lying at my feet in the trench, which for some reason I took to be a 'storm lantern'. It wasn't unti l a lot later that it dawned on me that the thing I'd been fidd ling around with was a live hand-grenade.

As conditions grew brighter, a German battery opened up from a stretch of woods just behind the trench. It didn 't take long for the enemy to reply. Suddenly I was stru ck by a mighty crash behind me, and saw a steep pillar of smoke ri sing. Still unfamiliar with the so unds of war, I was not able to distinguish the hisses and whistles and bangs of our own gunnery from the ripping' crash of enemy shells, and hence, to get a se nse of the lines of engagement. Above all, I could not account for the way I seemed to be under fire hom a U sides, so that the trajectories of the various shells were criss-crossing apparently aim lessly over the little warren of trenches where a few of us were holed up. This effect, for which I could see no cause, disquieted me and made me think. I still viewed the machinery of conflict with the eyes of an inexperienced recru it - the expressions of bellicosity seemed as distant and peculiar to me as events on another planet. This meant "I was unafraid; feeling myself to be invisible, I couldn't believe I was a target to anyone, mu ch less that I might be hit. So, retu rned to my unit,I surveyed the terrain in front of me with great indifference. In my pocket-diary I wrote do wn - a habit of mine later on as well - the times and the intensity of the bombardment.

Towards noon, the artillery fire had increased to a kind of savage pounding dance. The flames lit around us incessa ntly. Black, white and yellow clouds mingled. The shells with black smo ke, which the old-timers called 'Americans' or 'coal boxes', ripped with incredible vio lence. And all the time the curious, ca nary-like twittering of dozens of fuses. With their cut-out shapes, in which the trapped air produced a flute-like trill, they drifted over the lo ng su rf of explosions like ticking copper toy clocks or mechanical insects. The odd thing was that the little

STORM OF STEEL .

birds in the fore st seemed quite untro ubled by the myriad noise; they sa t peaceably over the smoke in th eir battered boughs. In the sho rt intervals o f firing, we could hear them singing happily or ardently to one a nother, if anything even inspired o r encour· aged by the dreadful noise on all sides.

In the moments when the shelling was particularly heavy, the men called to each other to remain vigilant. In th e stretch of trench that I could see, and out o f wh ose walls great dumps of mud had already been knocked here and there, we were in com~ plete readiness. Ou r rifles were unlocked in t he shoo ting-slits, and the riflemen were alertly eyeing the foreground. From time to time they checked to left and right to see whether we were still in contact, and they smiled when their eyes encountered th ose of co mrad es.

I sat with a comrade on a bench cut into the da y wall of the trench. Once, the bo ard of the shooting-slit th ro ugh which we were loo king splintered, and a rifle bullet flew between our heads and buried itself in th e day.

By and by, there were casualties. I had no way of knowing how th ings stood in other sectors of the labyrinthine trench, but the increasing frequ ency of the calls for ' Ambulancemen!' showed that the shelling was starting to take effect. From time to time, a figure hurried by with its head or neck or hand wrapped in fre sh, clean and very visi ble bandages, on its way to the rea r. It was a matter of urgency to get the victim out of the way, because of th e military superstition by which a trifling wound or hit, if nOt immed iately dealt with, is certain to be followed by so methi ng rather worse.

M y comrade, volunteer Kohl, kept up that North German sang-froid that mi ght have been made for such a situation. H e was chewing and sq ueezing on a cigar that refused to draw, and apart from that looked rather sleepy. Nor did he allow himself to be upset when, suddenly, to the rea r of us, there was a clattering as of a thousa nd rifles. It turned out th at the intensity of the

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LES EPARGE5

shelling had caused the wood to catch fire. Great tongues of flam e climbed noisily up the tree trunks.

While all this was going o n, I suffered from a rather curi ous anxiety. I was envi ous of th e old 'Lions of Perthes' for thei r experience in the 'witches' ca uldron', which 1 had missed out on through being away in Recouvrence. Theref?re, each time the coal-boxes came down especially thick and fast i!1 o ur neck of things, I wou ld turn to Kohl, who had been th ere, and ask:

'H ey, would you say this was like Perthes now?' To my chagrin, he would reply each time with a casuall y

dismissive gesture: 'Not by a long cha lk! ' When the shelling had intensified to the extent that now our

day bench had started to sway with the impact of the black monsters, I yelled into his ea r:

' He y, is it like Perthes now?' Kohl was a conscientio us soldier. He began by standing up,

looked about himself carefully, and then roared back, to my satisfaction:

' I th ink it's getting there!' The reply fi lled me with foo lish delight, as it co nfirmed to me

tha t this was my fi rst proper battle. At that instant, a man popped up in the corner of our sector:

'Follow me left!' We passed on the command, and started a long the smoke-filled position. The ration party had just arrived wi th th e chow, and hu ndreds of unwa nted mess-tins sat and steamed on the breastwor k. Who could think to ea t now? A crowd of wounded men pushed past us with blood-soaked bandages, t he excitement of the battle still etched on their pale faces. Up on the edge of the trench, stretcher after stretcher was swiftl y lugged to the rear. The sense of being up against it began to take hold of us. 'Careful of my arm, mate!' 'Come along, man, keep up!'

I spotted Lieutenant Sandvoss, ru shi ng past th e trench with distracted staring eyes. A long white bandage tr ailing round his

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STORM OF STEEL

neck gave him a strangely ungainly appearance, which probably explains why just at that moment he reminded me of a duck. There was something dreamlike about the vision - terror in the guise of the absurd. Straight afterwards, we hurried past Colonel von Oppen, who had his hand in his turnc pocket and was issuing orders to his adjutant. 'Aha, so there is some organization and purpose behind all this,' it flashed through my brain.

The trench debouched into a stretch of wood. We stood irresol- utely under huge beech trees. A lieutenant emerged from dense undergrowth andcalled to our longest-serving NCO: 'Have them fall out towards the sunset, and then take up position. Report to me in the dugout by the clearing.' Swearing, the NCO took over.

We fell out in extended order, and lay down expectantly in a series of flattish depressions that some predecessors of ours had scooped out of the ground. Our ribald conversations were sud- denly cut off by a marrow-freezing cry. Twenty yard? behind us, clumps of earth whirled up out of a white cloud and smacked into the boughs. The crash echoed through the woods. Stricken eyes looked at each other, bodies pressed themselves inro the ground with a humbling se nsation of powerlessoess to do any- thing else. Explosion followed explosio n. Choking gases drifted through the undergr owth, smoke obscured the treetops, trees and branches came crashing to the ground, screams. We leaped up and ran blindly, chased by lightnings and crushing air pressure, from {ree to tree, looking for cover, skirting around giant tree trunks like frightened game. A dugout where many men had taken shelter, and which I too was running towards, too k a direct hit that ripped up the planking and sent heavy timbers spinning through the air.

Like a couple of squirrels having stones thrown at them, the NCO and I dodged panting round a huge beech. Quite mechan- ically, and spur red on by further explosions, I ran after my superior, who sometimes turned round and stared at me, wild- eyed, yelling: 'What in God's name are those things ? What are

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LES EPARGES

they?' Suddenly there was a fla sh among the rootwork, and a blow on the left thigh flung me to the ground. I thought I had been struck by a clump of earth, but the warm trickle of blood indicated that I'd been wounded. Later, I saw that a needle-sharp piece of shrapnel had given me a flesh wound, though my wallet had taken the brunt of it. The fine cut, which before slicing into the muscle had split no fewer than nine thicknesses of stout leather, looked as though it might have been administered by a scalpel. •

I threw down my haversack and ran towards the trench we had come from. From all sides, wounded men were making tracks towards it from the shelled woods. The trench was appalling, choked with seriously wounded and dying men. A figure stripped to the waist, with ripped-open back, leaned against the parapet. Another, with a triangular flap hanging off the back of his skull, emitted sho rt, high-pitched screams. This was the home of the great god Pain, and for the first time I looked through a devilish chink into the depths of his realm. And fresh shells came down all the time.

I lost my head completely. Ruthlessly, I barged past everyone on my path, before finally, having fallen back a few times in my haste, climbing out of the hellish crush of the trench, to move more freel y above. Like a bolting horse, I ru shed through dense undergrowth, across paths and clearings, till I co llapsed in a copse by the Grande Tranchee.

It was already growing dark by the time a couple of stretcher- bearers who were looking for casualties came upon me. They picked me up on their stretcher and carried me back to their dressing-station in a dugout covered over with tree branches, where I spent the night, pressed together with many other wounded men. An exhausted medic stood in the throng of groan- ing men, bandagi ng, injecting and giving calm instructions. I pulled a dead man's coat over me, and fell into a sleep that incipient fever lit with lurid dreams. Once, in the middle of the

STORM Of STEEL

night, I awoke, and saw the doctor sti1l working by the light of a lamp. A Frenchman was screaming incessantly, and next to me a man growled: 'Bloody Frenchies, never happy if they've not got something to moan about!' And then I was asleep again.

As I was being carried away the following morning, a splinrer bored a hole through the stretcher canvas between my knees. '

Al ong with othet wounded men, I was loaded on to one of the ambulance wagons that shuttled between the battlefield and the main dressing~station. We galloped across the Grande Tranchee, which was still under heavy fire. Behind the grey canvas walls we careered through the danger that accompanie9 us with giant stamping strides.

On one of the stretchers o n which -like loaves of bread into an oven - we had been pushed into the back of the cart lay a comrade with a shot in the belly that occasioned him intense pain. He appea led to everyone of us to finish him off with the ambulanceman's pistol that hung in the wagon. No one answered. I was yet to experience the feeling where every jolt seems like a hammet blow on a bad injury.

The chief dressing~station was in a forest clearing. Long rows of straw had been laid out and covered with foliage. The stream o f wounded was proof, if proof were needed, that a significant engagemenr was in progress. At the sight o f the surgeon, who stood checking the roster in the bloody chaos, lance again had the impression, hard to describe, of seeing a man surrounded by elemental terror and anguish, studying the functioning of his organization with ant~like cold~bloodedness.

Supplied with food and drink, and smoking a cigarette, Ilay in the middle of a long line of wounded men on my spill of straw, in that mood which sets in when a test has been got through, if not exactly with flying colou rs; then still one way or another. A short snatch o f conversation next to me gave me pause.

' What hapP;tned to you, co mrade ?' , 'I've been shot in the bladder.'

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' Is it very bad? ' 'Oh, that's nOt the problem. I can't stand it that I can't fight ... ' Later th at same morning, we were taken to the main collection

point in the village church at St Maurice. A hospital train was there, already ge tting up steam. We would be back in ,Germany in two days. From my bed on the train, I could see th e fields just co ming into spring. We were well loo ked after by a qu iet fellow, a philosophy sc holar in private life. The first thing he did for me was to take out his penknife and cut th e boot off my foot. Th ecli are people wh o have a gift fot tending others, and so it was with this man; even seeing him re ading a book by 'a night~ light made me feel better.

The tra in took us to H eidelberg. At th e sight of the Neckar slopes wreathed with flowering

cherry trees, I had a strong sense of having co me home. What a beautiful country it was, and eminently wonh our blood and our lives. Never before had I felt its charm so clearly. I had good and serious th oughts, and fo r the first time I sensed that this war was more than just a great adventure.

The battle at Les Eparges was my fir st. It was quite unlike wh at I had expected. I had taken part in a ma jor engagement, without having clapped eyes on a single live opponent. It wasn't until much later that I experi enced the direct co ming together, the climax of battle in the fo rm of waves of attackers o n an open field, which, for decisive, murd erous moments, would break into the chaos and vacui ty of the battlefield.

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his respects to neighbouring monarchs (with many libations co Bacchus), in readiness for tbe evening ahead. These visits he referred to as <ambuscades'. On one occasion, he got into a tiff with the King of Inchy, and had a mounted MP call outan official feud between them. After several engagements, in the course of which rival detachments of squires bombarded each other with clods of earth from their respective fortified trenches, the King of , lnchy was incautious enough to regale himself with Bavarian beer at the mess in Queant, and was apprehended while visiting a lonely place. He was forced to purchase a vast tun of beer by way of ransom. And so ended the epic war between the two monarchs.

On II December, I went over the top to the front line, to report to Lieutenant Werje, the commander of my new company, which occupied C Sector in turn about with my former company, the 6th. As I was about {Q leap into the trench, I was shocked at the change to the position in just a fortnight. It had collapsed into a huge, mud-filled pit in which the occupants sloshed around miserably. Already up to my hip in it, I thought ruefully back to the round table of the King of Queant. We poor grunts! Almost all the dugouts had collapsed, and the shelters were inundated. We had to spend the next weeks working incessantly, merely to get something resembling terra {irma underfoot. For the time being, I stayed with Lieutenants Werje and Boje in a shelter, whose ceiling - in spite of tarpaulins suspended beneath it - leaked like a sieve, so that the servants had to carry the water out in buckets every half-h our.

When I left the shelter completely sodden the following morn- ing, I couI4n'( believe the sight that met my eyes. The battlefield that previously had borne the stamp of deathly emptiness upon it was now as animated as a fairground. The occupants of both trenches had emerged from the mora ss of their trenches 'on co the top. and already a lively exchange of schnapps, cigarettes, uniform buttons and other items had commenced between the

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DAILY LIFE IN THE TRENCHES

two barbed-wire lines. The throng of khaki-dad figures emerging from the hitherto so apparently deserted English lines seemed as eerie as the appearance of a ghost in daylight.

Suddenly a shot rang out that laid one of our men dead in the mire, whereupon both sides quickly scuttled back into their trench es. I went to that part of our line which fronted on to the British sap, and called out that I wanted to speak to an officer. And la, I saw several British soldiers going back, and returning with a young man from their firing trench who had on, as I was able to see through my field glasses, a somewhat more o rnate cap than they did. We negotiated first in English, and then a little more fluently in French, with all the men listening. I reproached him for the fact thar one of our men had been killed by a treacherous sho t, to which he replied that that hadn't been his company, but the one adjacent. ' II y a des cochons aussi chez vous!"· he remarked when a few shots from the sector next to ours plugged into the ground not far from his head, causing me to get ready to take cover. We did, though, say much to one another that betokened an almost sportsmanlike admiration for the other, and I'm sure we should have liked to exchange mementoes.

For clarity'S sa ke, we gave a solemn mutual declaration of war, to commence three minutes after the end of our talks, and following a 'Good-night!' on his part, and an ' Au revoir! ' on mine, to the regret of my men I fired off a shot that pinged against his steel loophole, and got one myself that almost knocked the rifle out of my hands.

It was the first time I had been given an opportunity of survey- ing the battlefield in fro!?t of the sap, seeing as otherwise one couldn't even show the peak of one's cap in such a perilous place. I saw that immediately in front of our entanglements there was a skeleton whose bleached bones glimmered out of scra ps of blue

.. 'There are some unscrupulous bastards' on your side 100!'

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STORM Of STEEL

uniform. From the British cap-badges see n that day, we were able to tell that the regiment facing ours were the 'Hindustani' Leicestershires.

Shortly after our negotiations were concluded, our artillery fired off a few rounds at the enemy positions, whereupon, before our eyes, four stretchers were carried across the open field without a single shot being loosed off at them from our side. I must say I felt proud.

Throughout the war, it was always my endeavour to view my opponent without animus, and to form an opinion of him as a man oq. the basis of the courage he showed. I would always try and seek him o ut in combat and kill him, and I expected nothing else from him. But never did I entertain mean thoughts of him. When prisoners fell into my hands, later on, I felt responsible for their safety, and would always do everything in my power for them.

As Christmas approa ched, the weather seemed to worsen; we had recourse to pumps in our efforts to do something about the water. During this muddy phase, our losses also worsened. So, for instance, I find in my diary for 12. December: 'Today we buried seven men in Douch y, and two more were shot.' And for 2.3 December: 'Mud and filth are gening the better of us. This morning at three o'clock an enormous deposit came down at the entrance to my dugout. I had to employ three men, who were barely able to bale the water that poured like a freshet into my dugout. Our trench is drowning, the morass is now up to our navels, it's desperate. On th e right edge of our frontage, another corpse has begun to appear, so far just the Jegs.'

We spent Christmas Eve in the line, and, standing in the mud, sang hymns, to which the British re sponded with machine- gun fire. On Christmas Day, we lost one man to a ricochet in the head. Immediately afterwards, the British attempted a friendly gesture by hauling a Christmas tree up on their traverse, but our angry troops quickly shot it down again, to which Tommy

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D A ILY LifE IN THE TRENCHE S

replied with rifle-grenades. It was all in all a less than merry Christmas.

On 2.8 December, I was back in co mmand of the Altenburg Redoubt. On that day, rifleman Hohn, one of my best men, lost his arm to a shell fragment. Heidotring received a bad thigh wound from one of the many bullets that were whizzing round our earthworks in th e hollow. And my faithful August Kettler, the first of many servants to die in my service, fell victim to a shrapnel that passed through his windpipe as he was on his way ~ to Monchy to get my lunch. As he was setting off with the mess-tins, I had called out to him: 'August, mind how you go, won't you.' ' I'll be fine, Lieutenant! ' And then I was summoned and found him lying on the ground close to the dugout, gurgling, as the air passed through the wound into hi s chest with every breath he took. I had him carried back; he died a few days later in hospital. It was a feature of his case, as it was of quite a few others, that his inability to speak made him even more pathetic, as he stared at the nurses in bewilderment like a tormented animal.

The road from Monchy to Altenburg Redoubt cost us a lot of blood. It led along the rear slope of a modes t elevation, perhaps five hundred paces behind our front line. Our opponents, perhaps alerted by aerial photographs to the fact that this road was indeed much frequented, set themselves to rake it at imervals with ma chine-gun fire, or to unload shrapnels over the area. Even though there was a ditch running along beside the road, and there were strict orders to walk in the ditch, sure enough everyone tend ed to stroll along this dangero us road, without any cover, with the ha bitual insouciance of old soldiers. Generally, we got away with it, but on many day~ fate snatched a victim or two, and over time they added up. Here, too, stra y bullets from all directions seemed to have arranged a rendezvous for th emselves at the latrine, so that we were often co mpelled to fl ee, holding a newspaper and uouse rs at half-mast. And for all that, it seemed

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STORM OF STEE L

height; and over them, hundreds of speedy li ghtnings produced by bursting shr apnels. Only the coloured signals, the mute appea ls to the artillery for help, indicated that there was still life in the trenches. This was th e first time I had seen artillery fire to match a natural spectacle.

In the evening, just as we hoped for a good night's sleep at last, we were given orders t<? load trench-mortar ammunition at Monchy, and had to spe nd all night waiting up in vain for a lorry that had got stuck, while the British made va rious, fortunately unsu ccessful, attempts on our lives, either by means of high- angled machine-gun fire o r sweeping the road with shrapnek We were especiall y irritated by one machine-gunner who sprayed his bullets at such an angle that they came dow n vertically, with acceleration produced by sheer gravity. There was absolutely no point in tryi ng to duck behind walls.

That night, th e enemy gav e us an example of his painstaking observation skills. In the second line, perhaps a mile an d a quarter from the enemy, we had left a heap of chalk in front of what was to be a subterran ea n munitions dump. The British drew the unfortunately correct conclusion that this dump was to be masked ove r in the course of the ni ght, and fired a group of shrapne/s at it, succeeding in gravely wo unding three of our men .

In the mo rning, I was shaken out of my sleep yet aga in by the order to lead my platoon on a digging detail to C Sector. My secti ons were bro ken up and divided among the 6th Company. I accompanied some of them back to the Adinfer woods, to get th em chopping timber. On th e way back to th e trench, I sropped in my du gout for a quick catnap. But it was no good, I was un ab le to get any rest in those days. No sooner had I pulled off my boots,> tha n 1 heard our artillery firing with unwonte d anima tion from th ei r positio n on the edge of the woods. At th e sa me time my batman Paulicke materiali zed in the entrance to the shelter, and shouted down: 'Gas attack!'

THE BEGINNING OF THE B .... TTLE OF THE SOMME

I broke o ut the gas mask, got into my boms, buckled up, ran out and saw a huge cloud of gas hanging ove r Monchy in thick white swath es; and drifting under a sli ght breeze in the directio n of Point I2.4 on the low ground.

Since my platoon was for th e most part in the front line, and an attack was probable, there was n't much time to stop and t hink. I leaped over the ramparts of the rese rve line, raced forward, and soon found myse lf enveloped in the gas cloud. A penetrating smell of chlo rine confirmed for me t hat t hi s was ind eed fi ghting . gas, and not, as I had briefly thought, artificial fog. I therefore donned my mask, only to tear it o ff again right away because I'd been running so fast that the mask didn't give me enough air to breat he; also the goggles misted over in no time, and completely whited ou t. All this of course was hardly the stuff of 'What To Do in a Gas Attack', which I'd taught so often myself. Since I felt pain in my ches t, I tried at leas t to put the cloud ~ehind me as fast as I could. At the entrance to the vi ll age, I needed to get through a barrage of gunfire, w hose impacts, topped by numer- ous clouds of shrapnel, drew a long a nd even chain across the barren and otherwise unfrequented fields.

Artillery fire in o pen co untry never has the same effect, either physically or on one's morale, as it does among dwellings or fortifications.l had therefo re broken thro ugh the line o f fire, and found myself in Monc hy, whic h lay under an extraordinary hail of shrapn el. A shower of balls, splinters and fu ses came hi ssing and whizzing through the branches o f the fruit trees in the neglected gardens, or smacked agai nst the maso nry.

In a du gout in the garden, I saw my company comrades Sievers and Vogel sitting; they had lit a: merry wood fire, and were leaning over the cleansin g flame to escape the effects of the chlorine. I joined them th ere, until the fi re had slac kened off a little, and then went forward down co mm unicatio n trench 6.

As I went on, I looked at all the little animals lying in the pit of the trench, killed by the chl orine, and tho ught: 'The barrage

79

STORM OF STEEL

is bound to start up again any moment, and if you continue taking your time, you'll he caught in the open, like a mouse in a trap.' And yet, I continued phlegmatically at my own pace.

Exactly what I had anticipated happened: not mate than fifty yards away from the company shelter, I found myself in a whole new and much worse bombardment, in which it seemed com- pletely impossible to get through even this short stretch of trench without being hit. Luckily for me, I saw right by me one of the occasional niches that were carved into the trench walls for dispatch cunners. Three dugout frames, not a whole lot, but better than none at all. So I pressed myself in there and allowed the storm to pass.

Unwittingly, I seemed to have chosen the liveliest corner go ing. Light and hea vy 'toffee-apples', Stokes bombs, shrapnels, ratdes, she ll s of all kinds - I could no longer identify everything that was buzzing and whizzing and cras hing around me. I was reminded of my corpora l at Les Eparges, and his exclamation: 'What in God's name are those things?'

Occasionally my ears were utterly deafened by a single fiendish crashing burst of flame. Then incessant hissing gave me the sense of hundreds of pound weights rushing down at incredible speed, one after the other. Or a dud shell landed with a short, heavy ground-shaking thump. Shrapnels burst by the dozen, like dainty crackers, shook loose their little balls in a dense doud, and the empty casings rasped after they were gone. Each time a shell landed anywhere dose, the earth flew up and down, and metal shards drove themselves into it.

It's an easier matter to describe these sounds than to endure them, because o ne cannot but associate every single sound of flying steel with the idea of death, and so I huddled in my hole in the ground with my hand in front of my face, imagining all the possible variants of being hit. I think I have found a comparison that captures the situation in which I and all the other soldiers who took part in this war so' often found ourselves: you must

80

THE BECINN I NC OF THE BATTLE OF T H E SO MME

imagine you are securely tied to a post, being menaced by a man swinging a heavy hammer. Now the hammer has been taken back over his head, ready to be swung, now it's deavingthe air towards you, on the point of touching your skull, then it's struck the post, and the splinters are flying - that's what it's like to experience heavy shelling in an exposed posi tion. Luckily, I still had a bit of that sublimina l feeling of optimism, ' it' ll be all right', that you feel during a game, say, and which, whi le it may be quite unfounded, still has a soothing effect on you. And indeed evelJ this shelling came to an end, and I could go on my way once more, and, this time, with some urgency.

At the front, the men were all busy greasing their rifles in accordance with the nostrums of 'What To Do in a Gas Attack', because their barrels had been completely blackened by chlorine. An ensign dolefully showed me his new sword-knot, which had quite lost its silver sheen, and had turned a greenish black.

Since our opponents seemed not to be making a move, I took my troops back to the rear. Outside the company office in Monchy. we sa'w a lot of men affected by gas, pressing their hands against their sides and groaning and retchin g while their eyes watered. It was a bad business, because a few of them went on to die over the next severa l days, in terrible agony. We had had to withstand an attack with chlorine, which has a burning, corrosive effect on the lungs. Henceforth, I resolve~ never to go anywhere without my gas mask, having previously, incredibly foolishly, often left it behind in my dugout, and used its case - like a botanist - as a container for sandwiches. Seeing this t~~~ me a lesson. •

On the way back, mea ning to buy something, I had the 2nd Battalion ca nteen, where I found a dej ected boy standing surrounded by broken crockery. A shell had come through the ceiling and gone off in the store, converting its treasures into a melange of jam,liquid soa p and punctured con- tainers of this and that. He had just, with Prussian pernicketiness,

8,

STORM OF STE EL

substantially harder than usual; also, there was a SUSpiCIOUS change of target, as though new batteries were set to finding their range. In spite of it all, we were relieved on 12 july, without too much disagreeableness, and went into the reserve in Monchy.

On the evening of the I3th, our dugouts in the garden came under fire from a ten-inch naval gun, whose massive shells rumbled at us in a low arc. They burst with a terrific bang_ At night, we were woken up by intense fire and a gas attack. We sa t rouitd the stove in the dugout in our gas masks, all exce pt Vogel, who had lost his, and was running around like a madman, looking in all the corners, while a few sadistic fellows whom he'd given a hard time reported that the smell of gas was getting stronger and stronger. In the end,l gave him my refill, and he sat for a n hour behind the smoking stove, holdin g his nose, and sucking on the mouthpiece _

On that same day I lost two men from my platoon, wounded as they went around the village: Hasselmann had a bullet through the arm, while Mascbmeier caught a shra pnel ball through the throat.

There was no attack th at night; even so, the regiment lost another twenty-five dead and a great many wounded. On the I5th and 17th, we had further gas attacks to endure. On th e 17th, we were relieved and twice suffered heavy bombardment in Douc hy. One of them came just as we were having an officers' meeting - with Major von jaro tzky in an orchard. It was dangerous, but it was still ridiculous to watch the company suddenly burst a part, faU on their fa ces, force thei r way through hedges in an absolute tri ce, and disappear under va rious co ver before you could count to ten. A shell falling in the ga rden of my lodgings killed a little girl who had been digging around for ru bbish in a pit.

On 20 july we moved back up. O n the 28th, I arranged with Ensign Wohlgemut and Privates Bartels and Birkner to go on another one of o ur patrols. We had nothing more in mind than to wander around between the lines and see what was new in no

86

THE BEGINNING OF THE BATT LE OF THE SOMME

~.,"', land, because we were beginning to get a bit bo red with tren ch. In th e afternoon, Lieutena nt Brauns, the officer in the

6dl C:onlp,mll w·ho, was relieving me, paid me a call in my dugout, m!: a fine Burgundy with him. Towards midnight we broke

I went out into the trench, where my three co mpanions were.

ia!::~:~a,~s:s,e::m::b:led in the lee o f a traverse. After I'd picked out a ,f looked dry and in worki ng order, I climbed over the wire in a hi gh good humour, and Brauns called out a jovial: 'Break a leg!' after me.

In quick time, we had crept up to th e enemy barrier. Just before it, we came across a pretty sto ut and well-insulated wire in some long grass. I was of the opinion that information was important here, and instru cted Wohlgem ut to cut o ff a piece and take it with him. While he was sawing away at it with - for want of more appropriate tools - a cigar di pper, we heard so mething jingling the wire; a few British soldiers appeared and started working without noticing us, pressed as we were in the long grass.

Mindfu l of ou r hard time on the previous expedition, I breathed: 'WohlgerrlUt, ross a hand-grenade in that lot! '

' Li eute nant, sho uJdn 't we let them work a bit more first?' 'Ensign, tha t was an orde r! ' Even here, in th is wasteland, the magic words too k effect.

With the sinking feeling of a man embarking o n an unce rtain adve nture, I listened to the dry crackle of the pulled fuse, and watch ed Wohlgemu t, to offer less of a target, trundl e, almost roll the gre nade at the British gro up. It stopped in a thi cket, a lmos t in [he middle of them; they seemed not to have seen anything. A few moments of grea t tension ticked by. 'C-crashh!' A flash of lightning lit up their spraw ling figures. With a shout of ' You are prisoners!' we launc hed ou rselves like tigers into the dense white smoke. A desperate scene developed in fra ctions of seconds. I held my pistol in th e middle of a face that seemed to loo m out of the dark at me like a pale mask. A shadow sla mmed back against the barbed wire with a grunt. There was a ghastly cry, a sort of

STOR M O F STEEL

'Wah!' - of the kind that people only produce when they 've seen a ghost. On my left, Wohlgemut was banging away with his pisto l, while Ba rtels in his excitement was throwing a hand· grenade in o ur midst.

After one shot, the magazine had clicked out of my pistol gri p. I stood ye lling in front of a Briton who in his horror was pressing his back into the barbed wire, and kept pulling the tri gge r. Nothing happened - it was like a dream of impotence. Sounds came from the trench in front of us. Shouts ran g out, a machine· gun clattered into life. We jumped away. Once more I stopped in a crater and aimed my pistol at a shadowy form that was pursuing me. This time, it was just as well it didn 't fire, because it was Birkner, who m I had supposed to be safely back long ago.

Then we raced towards our lines. Just before our wire, the bullets were coming so thick and fast that I had to leap into a water. filled , wire·laced.mine·c rater. Dangling over th e water on th e swaying wire, I heard the bullets ru shing past me like a huge swarm of bees, w hile scraps of wire and meta l shards sliced into the rim of t he crater. After half an hour or so, once the firing had abated , I made my way over our entanglements and leaped into our trench, to an enthusiastic reception. Wohlgemut and Bartels were already back; and anothe r half an hour late r, so was Birkner. We were all pleased at the ha ppy outcome, and o nly regretted that o nce again ou r intended captive had managed to get away. It was only afterwards th at I noticed that t he experience had taken its toll on my nerves, when I was lying on my pa ll et in my dugo ut with teeth chatte ring, and quite unabl e to sleep. Rather, I had th e sensation of a so rt of supreme awakeness - as if I had a li ttl e electric bell going off somewhere in my body. The follow ing morning, I co uld hardly walk, beca use over o ne knee (over other, histo ric injuries) I had a long scrape from the barbed wire, while the oth er had caught some shards from Bartels's hand·grenad e.

These short expeditions, where a man takes his life in his hands, were a good means of testing OUI mettle and interrupting

88

THE BEG IN NING OF T HE B ATTLE OF THE SO MME

the monotony of trench life . There's nothin g worse for a soldier than boredom.

On I I August there was a black ri ding stallion loose ou,tside _ Berles·au- bois, which a territorial was finally a ble to kill with three bullets. The British officer it had escaped from wouldn't have been too pleased to see it in th at condi tion. In th e night, Fusilier Schulz ca ught a spent part of an English bullet in his eye. In Monchy, too, there were more casualties, as t he walls brought dow n by shelling now afforded less and less protection from rando m sprays of machine-gun bullets. We started to dig trenches' right across the vi llage, and erected new wa lls nea r th e most dangerous places. In the neglected gardens, th e berries were ripe, and tas ted all the sweeter because of th e bullets flying aro und us as we ate them.

The I2th of August was the long-awaited day when, for the second t ime in the war, I had a home furl ough. No sooner had I got home and se ttl ed in, though, than a te legram came wing ing after me: 'Return immediately, furth er details from loca l com- mand Cambrai.'· And three hours later, I was on th e train. On the way to the station, three girls in light dresses swa yed past me, clutching ten nis racquets - a shining last image o f that so rt of life, which was to stay with me for a long time.

On the 2Ist I was back in fa miliarcou nrry, the roads swarming wit h soldiers o n account of the depa rture of th e 1 I nh and the arrival of a new division. The I st Battalion was based in the village o f Ecous t-S t-M ein, whose w reckage we were to reocc upy on ou r advance two years fro m now.

I was welcomed by Paulicke, whose da ys were a lso numbered. H e told me that the young fellows from my platoon must have inqu ired about a dozen times whether I wasn't back yet. It stirred and revived me to hear that; I realized that in the hot days that were ahead of us, I had a foll owing ba sed not onl y on rank, but also on charac ter.

That night I was put up with eight other office rs in the lo ft of

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STORM OF STEEL

After breakfast, I took a' little look around the place. In the course of a very few days, heavy artillery had transformed a peaceable town in the hinterland to the ima ge o f dread. Whole houses had been flattened or ripped apart by shells, so that the rooms arid their furnishings were left hanging over the chaos like theatre flats. The smell of corpses oozed fro m some buildings, because the first abrupt assault had taken the inhabitants by surprise, and buried many of them in the ruin s before they co uld leave their dwellings. On one doorstep lay a little girl, stretched out in a lake of crimson.

All that was left of the streets were narrow footpaths that went snaking thro ugh huge mounds of beams and masonry. Fruit and vegetables were mouldering away in the ra vaged gardens.

After lunch, which we put together in the kitchen from an over-supply of iron rations, and which was co ncluded, of course, by a potent cup of coffee, I went and stretched out in an armchai r upstairs. Fro m letters that were lying around I saw that the house had belo nged to a brewer by the name of Lesage. There were open cupboards and wardrobes in the room, an upset washstand, a sewing-machine and a pram. O n the walls hung smas hed paint- ings and mirrors. On the floor were drihs, sometimes several feet deep, of drawers pulled out of chests, linen, corsets, books, newspapers, nightstands, broken glass, bo ttles, musica l scores, chair legs, skirts, coats,lamps, curtains, shutters, doors o ff their hinges, lace, photographs, oil paintings, albums, smashed chests, ladies' hats, flowerpots and wallpaper, all tangled together.

Through the splintered shutters, the view was of a sq uare furrowed by bombs, under the boughs of a ragged linden. This confusion of impressions was furth er darkened by the incessant artillery fire that was ragin g round th e town. From time to time, the giga ntic impact of a fifteen-inch shell drowned oU{ a ll other noise. Clouds of shards washed through Com bles, splattering against the branches of the trees, or striking th e few intact roofs, sending the slates slithering down.

9.

GU ILLEM ON T

In the course of the afternoon, the bombing swell ed to such a pitch that all that was left was the feeling of a kind of oceanic roar, in which individual so unds were completely subordin ated. From seven o'clock, the sq uare and the houses on it were sub- jected to fifteen-inch-shell bombardment at thirty-second inter- vals. There were many that did not go off, whose sho rt, dull thumps shook the house to its foundations. Througho ut, we sa t in our basement, on silk-upholstered armchairs ro und a table, with our heads in our hands, counting the seco nds between . explosions. The witticisms dried up, and fina lly the boldest of us had nothing to say. At eight o'clock the house next door came down after taking two direct hi ts; its collapse occasioned a huge cloud of dust.

From nine ti1l ten, the shelling acquired a de mented fu ry. The earth shook, the sky seemed like a boiling ca uld ron. Hundreds of heavy batteries were cra shing away at and around Combles, innumerable shells criss-c rossed hissing and howli ng over our heads. All was swathed in thick smo ke, which was in the ominous underli ghting of coloured fla res. Because o f racking pains in o ur heads and ears, co mmun ication was possible o nly by odd, shouted words. The ability to think logically and the feeling o f gravity, both seemed to ha ve bee n removed. We had the se nsatio n of the ine luctable and the unco nditionally necessary, as if we were facing an elemental force. An NCO in NO.3 Platoon wen t into a frenzy.

At ten o'clock, this infern a l ca rni val gradually seemed to calm itself, and settled into a sedate drumfire, in which, admittedly, one still was not ab le to ma ke out an individua l shot.

At eleven o'clock, a runn er arri ved with orders to take the men out on to the church squa re. We jo ined up with the other twO platoo ns in marching order. A fourth platoon, under Lieutenant Sievers, had dropped out because they were to take provisions up to the fro nt. They now ringed us as we assembled in this peri lous loca tio n, and loaded us with bread, tobacco and canned

9,

STORM OF STEEL

meat. Sievers insisted I take a pan of butter, shook hands, and

wished us luck. Then we marched off in Indian file. Everyone was under strict

orders abso lutely to stay in touch with the man in front. No sooner were we out of the village, than our guide realized he'd gone wrong. We were forced, under heavy shrapnel fire, to retrace our steps. Then, mostly at a jog, we crossed open country, follow- ing a white ribbon laid out to guide us, though it was shot in pieces. We were forced to stop periodically, often in the very worst places, when our guide lost his way. To keep the unit together, we were not allowed to lie down or take cover.

Even so, the first and third platoon had suddenly vanished. On, on! In one violently bombarded defile, the sections backed up. Take cover! A horribly penetrating smell told us that this passage had already taken a good many lives. After running for our lives, we managed to reach a second defile which concealed the dugout of the front line commanding officer, then we lost our way again, and in a painful crush of excited men, had to turn back once more. At the most five yards from Vogel and me, a middle-sized shell struck the bank behind us with a dull thump, and hurled mighty clods of earth over us, as we thought our last moment had come. Finally, our guide found the path again - a strangely constellated group of corpses serving as landmark. One of the dead lay there as if crucified on the chalk slope. It was impossible to imagine a more app'ropriate landmark.

On, on! Men collapsed while running, we had to threaten them to use the last energy from their exhausted bodies. Wounded men went down left and right in craters - we disregarded their cries for help. We went on, eyes implacably on the man in front, through a knee-high trench formed from a chain of enormous craters, one dead man after another. At moments, we felt our feet settling on soft, yielding corpses, whose form we couldn't make out on account of the darkness. The wounded man collaps-

.6

GUILLEMONT

ing on the path suffered the same fate; he too was trampled underfoot by the boots of those hurrying ever onwards.

And always the sweetish smell! Even little Schmidt, my orderly, who had accompanied me on the odd perilous reconnaissance, was beginning to reel. I snatched his rifle out of his hands, which even in his extremity, the good lad tried to resist.

At last we reached the front line, which was occupied by men huddled together in little holes. Their dull voices trembled with joy when they learned that we were come to re lieve them. A Bavarian sergeant handed over the sector and his flare pistol to ' me with a few words.

My platoon's sector was on the right flank of the regiment's position, and consisted of a defile hammered by constant shelling into little more than a dip, running through open country from a couple of hundred paces to the left of GuiUemont, to a little less than that to the right of the Bois de TrOnes. Some five hundred paces separated us from the troops to our right, the 76th Infantry. The shelling here was so heavy that nothing could survive.

Suddenly the Bavarian sergeant had disappeared, and I stood all alone, with my flare pistol in my hand, in the midst of that eerie cratered landscape, masked now by ,patches of creeping fog. Behind me I heard a stifled, unpleasant sound; with a degree of calm that astonished me, I registered that it came from a bloated disintegrating corpse.

Since I had no idea as to the enemy's possible whereabouts, I went back to my men and told them to be ready for the worst. All of us stayed awake; I spent the night with Paulicke and my cwo orderlies in a foxhole no bigger than a cubic yard.

When morning paled, the strange surroundings gradually revealed themselves to our disbelieving eyes.

The defile proved to be little more than a series of enormous craters full of pieces of uniform, weapons and dead bodies; the country around, so far as the eye could see, had been completely

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STORM OF STE E L

ploughed by heavy shells. No t a s ingle blade of grass showed itself. The ch urn ed- up field was gruesome. In among the livin g defenders lay th e dead. When we du g foxho les, we realized that they were stacked in layers. Ope company after another, pressed together in the drumfire, had been mown down, then th e bodies had been buried unde r showers of earth sent up by shells, and then the relief com pa ny had taken their predecessors' place. And

now it was our turn. The defi le and the land behind was strewn with Ge rman dead,

the field ahead with British. Arms and legs and heads stuck out of the slopes; in front of our holes were severed limbs and bodies, so me of which had had coats or tarpaulins thrown over them, to save us the sight of the disfigured faces. In spite of the heat, no one thought of covering the bodies w ith earth.

The vi ll age of Guillemonr seemed to have disappeared without trace; just a whitish sta in on the cra tered field indicated where one of the limesrone houses had been pulverized. In front of us lay th e station, crumpled like a child's toy; further to the rea r the w oods o f Delville, ripped to splinters.

No sooner had day broke n than a low-fly in g RAF pla ne whirl ed towa rd s us, and, vu ltu re-like, began drawing its circles over head, while we fled into our holes an d huddl ed together. The sharp eye of the observer must have noticed so mething anyway, beca use before long the plane began to emit a series of low, long-drawn+o ut s iren t ones, co min g at short inter va ls. They put one in m ind of the cries of a fabulou s creature, hanging pitilessly

over the desert. A little later, and the battery seemed to have take n th e signals.

One heavy, low-arcing shell afte r t he other came bargi ng a long with inc redible force. We sat help lessly in our refuges,light i.ng a cigar and then throwing it away again, prepared at any moment to find ourselves buried. Schmidt's sleeve was sliced open by a

large shard. With only the third shell the fellow i.n t he hole next to ours

GUIL LEM ONT

was buried by an enormous explosion. We dug him up again r ight away; even so, the weight of the masses of earth had left him deathly tired, his face sunken, like a skull. It was Private

. Simon. His experience had made him wise, because each time anyone moved aro und in the open while there were aerop lanes about, I could hear his furious voice and a fist waving from the o peni ng of his tarpaulin -covered foxho le.

At three in the afternoon my sentries came to me from the left and stated that they were unable to hold out where they were any longer, as their holes had been shot away. 1 had to display m y full a uthority to ge t the m back to their station s. What helped me make my case was the fact that 1 myse lf was in the place of grea test dan ger.

A little before ten o'clock at night, a fire-s torm was directed at the left flank of the regiment, which, twenty minutes later, had moved over to us. Soon we were completely wrapped in smoke a nd du sr, but mos t 0'£ the shells came down just behind or just in front of our trench, if one ca n use that word for ou r smas hed ho llow. As the storm raged around us, I wa lked up an d down my sector. The men had fixed bayonets. They stood sto ny and motionless, rifl e in hand, on the front edge of the dip, gaz in g into the field . Now a nd then, by the light of a flare, l saw steel helmet ·by steel helmet, blade by gli nting blade, and I was overco me by a feeling of invulnerability. We might be crushed, but surely we could not be co nquered.

In the platoon to the left o f us, Sergeant H ock, the unfortunate rat-catcher of Monchy, a imed to discha rge a white flare, picked up the wrong flare, and instead sent up a red ba rrage light, which was taken up in all quarters. Stra ight away our ow n artillery opened up, and it was a joy to behold. One shell after anoth er ca me yowling down out of the sky and showered the field a head of us in a foumain of sha rds and sparks on impact. A mixture of dust, stal e gases and th e reek of flung ca rcasses brewed up from the craters.

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STORM OF STEE L

After this orgy of destruction, the shelling quickly flooded back to its previous levels. One man's slip of the hand had got the whole titanic machinery of war rolling.

Hock was and remained an unlucky fellow; that same night, as he was loading his pistol, he shot a flare into his bootleg, and had to be carried back with grave burns.

The following day, it rained hard, which was no bad thing so far as we were concerned, as once the dust turned to mud the feeling of dryness in our mouths wasn't so tormenting, and the great clumps of monstrous blue-black flies basking in the sun - they were like velvet cushions to look at - were finally dispersed. I spent almost the whole day sitting on the ground in front of my foxhole, smoking and eating-, in spite of the surroundings, with a healthy appetite.

The following morning, Fusilier Knicke in my platoon got a rifle shot from somewhere through the chest and against his spine, so that he lost the use of his legs. When I went to see how he was, he was lying soberly in a hole in the ground, looking like a man who had come to terms with his own death. That evening he was carried back through the bombardment, in the course of which, when the stretcher-bearers suddenly had to dive for cover, he suffered a n additional broken leg. He died at the dressing- station.

That afternoon one of my men had me come over and look in the direction of Guillemont stati on, from behind a to rn-off British leg. Hundreds o f British soldiers were running forward through a flat communication trench, little troubled by the weak gunfire we were able to direct at them_ The scene was indicative of t.he inequality of the resources with which we had to fight. Had we essayed the same thing, our units would have been shot to pieces in a matter of minutes. While o n our side there wasn't a single captive balloo n to be seen anywhere, the British had about thirty clustered into one vast luminous-yellow bunch, watching with Argus eyes for the least movement to show itself any-

>00

GUILLEMONT

where in the crumpled landscape, to have a hail of steel directed against it.

In the evening, as I gave out the password, a large shell fragment came buzzing into my stomach. Fortunately, it was almost spent, and so merely struck my belt buckle hard and fell to the ground. I was so astonished that it took the concerned cries of my men, and their offers of water from their ca nteens, to show me that I' d had a near thing.

At dusk, two members of a British rarion party lost their way, and blundered up to the sector of the line that was held by the first platoon. They approached perfectly serenely; one of them was ca rrying a large round container o f food , the other a longish tea kettle. They were shot down at point-blank range; one of them landing with his upper body in the defile, while his legs remained on the slope. It was hardly possi ble to take prisoners in this inferno, and how could we have brought th em back through the barrage in any case?

It was almost one o'clock in the morning when I was roused by Schmidt from my half-sleep. Insta ntly I leaped up, and reached for my rifle. Our relief had come. We handed over what there was to be handed over, and as quickly as possible made our way out of this fiendish place.

But no sooner had we reached the shallow co mmunication tren ch than a first clutch of shrapnels blew up in our midst. One ball smashed the wrist of the man in front of me, sending the arterial blood sp urting everywhere. He reel ed, and made to lie down on his side. I took him by the arm, pulled him to his feet in spite of his complaints, and only let go of him when we'd reached the drefsing-station next to battle headquarters.

Things were pretty 'hot' along both the defiles, and we were panting for breath. The worst place was a valley we ended up in, where shrapnels and light shells seemed to go up uninterruptedly. Prruch! Prruch! went the spinning iro n, se nding a rain of sparks into the night. Whee! Another volley! I gasped because, seconds

STORM OF STEEL

in advance, I knew from the increasing noise that the arc of the next projectile was heading almost exactly for me. An instant later, there was a heavy crash at my feet, and soft scraps of clay flipped into the air. It was a dud!

Everywhere groups of men, eirher relieving or being relieved, were hurrying through the night and the bombardment, some of them utterly lost, and groaning with tension and exhaustion; shouts fell, and orders, and in monotonous repetition the long· drawn.out cries for help from the abandoned and the wounded. As we raced on, I gave directions to the lost, pulled some men out of shell-holes, threatened others who wanted to lie down, kept shouting my name, and so brought my platoon, as if by a

miracle, back to Combles. Then we needed to march via Sailly and Gouvernements-Ferme

to Hennois woods, where we would bivouac. It was only now that the degree of our exhaustion became fully dear. Heads brutishly down, we slunk along the road, often forced off it by cars or munitions columns. In my unhealthy irritation, I couldn't help but think that these vehicles followed no other purpose than to annoy us as they sli ced past us, and more than once I caught

myself reaching for my pistol. After our march we had to put up tents, a nd only then could

we throw ourselves on the hard ground. During our stay in the forest camp, we endured great sto rms of rain. The straw in the tents started to moulder, and many men got sick. We five co m· pany officers were not much put out by this external wetness, spending our evenings si tting on our cases in our tem, with a few goodly bottles that had been magicked up from somewhere. In such situations, red wine is the best medicine.

On ,one of these evenings, our Guards counter-attacked and captured the village of Maurepas. While the two sets of artillery were raging against each other over a wide area, a violent storm broke loose overhead, so that, as in the Homeric battle of

'02

GUILLEMONT

gods and men, the di sturbance below seemed to be vying with that on high.

Three days later, we moved back to Combles, where my pia· toon this time occ upi ed four smallish basements. These base· ments were hewn from blocks of chalk, long and narrow and with arched ceilings; they promised security. They seemed to have belonged to a vintner - or that, at any rate, was my expla- nation for the fact that they afforded small fireplaces broken into th e walls. After I'd posted sentries, we stretched out on the many mattresses that ou r predecessors had lugged into place he re.

The first morning, things were relatively calm; I took a walk through the ravaged garde ns, and looted delicious peaches from their espaliered bough s. On my wanderings I happened into a house surrounded by tall hedges, which must have belonged to a lover of antiques. On the walls of the rooms hung a collecti on of painted plates, holy water basins, etchings and wooden carvings of saintS. Old china sat in piles in large cupboards, o rnate leather- bound volumes were scattered about the floor, among them an exquisite old edition of Don Quixote. I would have loved to pick up a memento, but I felt like Robinson Crusoe and the lump of gold; none of these things were of any value here. So great bales of beautiful silks rotted away in a workshop, without anyone paying them any attention. You had only co think o f the glowing barrage at Fremicourt~Ferme, which cut off this landscape, and you soo n thought better of picking up any extra baggage.

When I reached my lodgings, the men were back from foraging trips of their own through th e gardens, and had boiled up a soup in which you could stand yo ur spoon Out of bully beef, potatoes, peas, carrOts, artichokes and various other vegetables. While we were eating, a shell landed on the house, and three others came down near by, without us lifting our head s. We had seen and been through too much already to ca re. The house must have see n some bloody happen ings already, because on a pile of rubble

203

STORM OF STEEL

losses. Unfortunately, one of ours happened to be NCO Mevius, whom I had discovered to be a bold fighter on the night of Regnieville. He was lying face down in a puddle of blood. When I turned him' over, I saw by a large hole in his forehead that it was tOO late for any help. I had just exchanged a few words with him; suddenly a question I'd asked went un answe red. A few seconds later, when 1 looked round the traverse to see what was keeping him, he was already dead. It was an eerie feeling.

After our opponents had also pulled back a little, a pro tracted exchange of fire ensued, with a Lewis gun barely fifty yards away from us forcing us to keep our heads down. We responded with one of our own light machine-guns. For maybe half a minute, the two guns fought it out, with the bullets spraying and bouncing everywhere. Then our gunner, Lance-Corporal Marullo, col- lapsed with a shot in the head. Even though his brains were dribbling down past his chin, he was still lucid as we carried him into the nearest shelter. Motullo was an older man, one of those who would never have volunteered; but once he was standing behind his machine-gun, I had occasion to observe that, even though he was standing in a hail of bullets, he didn't duck his head by so much as an inch. When I asked him how he was feeling, he was capable of replying in complete sentences. I had the sense that his mortal wound didn't hurt him at all, maybe

that he wasn't even aware of it. Gradually, things calmed down a little, as the British fo r their

part were also busy digging themselves in. At twelve o'clock, Captain von Brixen, Lieutenant Tebbe and Lieutenant Voigt came by; they offered their congratulations on the companr's suc- cesses. We sat down in the pillbox, lunched off British provisions, and discussed the position. In between times, I was having to nego- tiate with about twO dozen Britishers, whose heads appeared out of the trench a hundred yards away, and who seemed to want to surrender. But as soon as I put my own head over the parapet, found myself under fire from somewhere further back.

THE DOUBLE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI

Suddenly, there was some commotion at the British b~:~~ Hand-grenades flew, rifles banged, machine-guns ' 'They're coming! They're coming!' We leaped behind sao" and started shooting. In the heat of battle, one of my Corporal Kimpenhaus, jumped up on to the parapet, and down into the trench until he was brought down by two wounds in his arms. I [Oak a note of this hero of the hour, was proud to be able to co ngratulate him twO weeks later, on award of the Iron Cross, First Class.

No sooner had we got hack from this interruption to our lunc h than there was more pandemonium. It was one of those curious incidents that can suddenly and unpredictably transform an entire situation. The noise was coming from a subaltern in the ' regiment on our left who wanted to line up with us, and seemed inflamed by a berserk fury. Drink seemed to have tipped his innate bravery into a towering rage. 'Where are the Tommies? Lemme at 'em! . Come on boys, who's coming with me?' In his inse nsate fury, he knocked over our fine barricade, and plunged forward, clearing a path for himself with hand -g renade s. His orderly sli pped ahead of him along the trench, shooting down anyone who survived the explosions.

Bravery, fea rless risking of one's own life, is always inspiring. We too found ourselves picked up by his wild fury, and scrabbling around to grab a few hand-grenades, rushed to form part of this berserker's progress. Soon I was up a longside him, tearing al ong the line, and the other officers too, followed by riflemen from my company, weren't slow in coming. Even Captain von Brixen, the battalion commander, was up there in the van, rifle in hand, bringing down enemy grenade-throwers over our heads.

The British resisted manfully. Every traverse had to be fought for . The black balls of Mills bombs crossed in the air with our own long-handled grenades. Behind every traverse we captured, we found corpses or bodies still twitching. We killed each other, sight unseen. We too suffered losses. A piece of iron crashed to

STORM OF STEEL

the ground next to the orderly, which the fellow was unable co avoid; and he collapsed co the ground, while his blood issued on to the clay from many wounds.

We hurdled over his body, and charged forward. Thunderous crashes poinred us the way. Hundreds of pairs of eyes were lying in wait behind rifles and machine-guns in the dead land. We were already a long way in front of our own lines. From all sides, bullets whistled round our steel helmets or struck the trench parapet wich a hard crack. Each time a black iron oval broke the horizon, one's eye sized it up with that instanraneous clarity of which a man is only capable in moments of life and death. During those instants of waiting, you had to try to get to a place where you 'could see as much of the sky as possible, because it was only against its pale backdrop that it was possible to see the black jagged iron of those deadly balls with sufficient clarity. Then you hurled your own bomb, and leaped forward. One barely glanced at the crumpled body of one's opponent; he was finished, and a new duel was commencing. The exchange of hand-grenades reminded me of fencing with foils; you needed to jump and stretch, almost as in a ballet. It's the ,deadliest of duels, as it invariably ends with one or other of the participants being blown to smithereens. Or both.

In those moments, I was capable of seeing the dead - I jumped over them with every stride - without horror. They lay there in the relaxed and softly spilled attitude that characterizes those moments in which life takes its leave. During my leaping progress, I had a difference of opinion with the subaltern, who was rea lly quite a card. He wanted to be first, and insisted that J supply him with bombs, rarberthan throw them myself. In amongst the short terrible shouts that acco mpany the work, and by which you a lert the other to the presence of the enemy, I would sometimes hear him: 'One man to throw! And after aU I was the instructor at the storm troop training! '

A trench that led off to the right was cleaned up by soldiers of

THE DOUBLE BATTLE OF C AMBRAI

the 225th, who were trailing in our wake. British soldiers caught in a cleft stick tried to flee across the open fields, but were mown down in the fire that straight away was directed at them from all sides.

And tho se soldiers we were pursuing gradua lly felt the Siegfried Line becoming too hot for them. They tried to d!sappear down a communications tren ch that led off to the right. We jumped up on to the sentry steps, and saw something that made us shout with wild glee: the trench they were trying to escape dow!! doubled back on itself towards ours, like the curved frame (if a lyre, and, at the narrowest point, they were only ten paces apart! So they had to pass us again. From our elevated position, we were able to look down on the British helmets as they stumbled in their haste and excitement. I tossed a hand-grenade in front of the first lot, bringing them up short, and after th em all the ochers. Then they were stuck in a frightful jam; hand-gren ades flew through the air like snowba lls, covering everything in milk-white smoke. Fresh bombs were handed up to us fro m below. Light- nings flashed between the huddled British, hurling up rags of flesh and uniforms and helmets. There were mingled cries of rage and fear. With fire in our eyes, we jumped on CO the very lip of the trench. The rifles o f the whole area were pointed at us.

Suddenly, in my delirium, I was knocked to the ground as by a hammer blow. Sober, I puJled off my helmet and saw to my terror that there were cwo large holes in it. Cadet Mohrmann, leaping up to assist me, assu red me that I had a bleedi.ng scratch at the back of my head, nothing more. A bullet shot from so me distance had punched through my helmet and only brushed my sk ull. Half unconscious, I reeled back with a hurriedly applied bandage, to remove myse lf from the eye of the storm. No sooner had I passed the nearest traverse than a man ran up behind me and told me that Tebbe had just been killed in th e same place, by a shot in the head.

That news floored me. A friend of mine with noble qualities,

STORM OF STEEL

with whom I had shared joy, sorrow and danger for years now "" who 01r a few moments ago had called out some pleasantry

me, rak~n from life by a tiny piece of lead! I could not grasp fact; unforrunately, it was all too true.

In this murderous sector of trench, all my NCOs and a thi" of my company were bleeding to death. Shots in the head t~~: down. Lieutenant Hopf was another one of the fallen, an ' man, a teacher by profession, a German schoolmaster in the sense of the word. My two ensigns and many others besides wo unded. And yet, the 7th Company held on to the cotlquetil line, under the command of Lieutenant Hoppenrath, the able-bodied officer remaining, until we were reli eved.

Of all the stimulating moments in a war, there is none co mpare with the encounter of two sto rm t roop co mmanders the narrow clay walls of a line. There is no going back, and pity. And so everyone knows who has seen one or other them in their kingdom, the aristocrat of the trench, with determined visage, brave co the point of folly, leaping forward and back, with keen, bloodthirsty eyes, men answered the demands of the hour, and whose names go down in no chro nicle.

On the way back, I stopped with Captain von Brixen for moment, who with a few troops was shooting at a row over a nearby parallel trench. I stood between him and other marksme n, and watched the bullets striking home. In dreamlik~ mood that followed the shock of my wounding, never occurred to me that my white turban-like bandage must vis ible miles away.

Suddenly a blow to the forehead knocked me to the floor, . my eyes were drench ed with blood. The man next to me fe ll the sa me time, and started to moan. Shot in the head thl,ollgh steel helmet and temp le. The captain feared he had lost company commanders on one day, but on inspection could ~:::~ out only two surface wounds near the hairline. They must I

THE DOUBLE BATTLE OF CAMB RAI

been caused by the bursting bullet, or perh~ps splinters from the helmet of the wounded man. This same man, with whom I shared pieces of metal from the sa me bullet, came to visit me after the war; he worked in a cigarette factory, and, ever since his wound, had been sickly and a little eccentric.

Weakened by funher loss of blood, I accompanied the captain, who was rerurning to his command post. Skirting the heavily shelled vill age of Mreuvres at a jogtrot, we got back [0 the dugout . in the canal bed, where I was bandaged up and given a tetanus .. . lO)ection.

In the afternoon, I got on a lorry, and had myself driven to Ucluse, where I gave my report to Colonel von Oppen over supper. After sharing a botde of wine with him, feeling half asleep but in a wonderful mood, I said good-n ight, and, fo ll owi ng this immense da y, hurled myself with a meritorious feeling on to the bed that my trusty Vinke had made up for me.

A couple of days after that, the battalion moved into Lecluse. O n 4 December, the divisional co mmander, General von Busse, add ressed the battalions involved, singling out the 7th Company. I marched them past, bandaged head held high.

I had every right to be proud of my men . Some eighty men had taken a long stretch of li ne, capturing a quanticy of machine- guns, morrars and o ther mateTiel, and tak en some two hundred prisoners. I had the pleasure of being able to announce a number of promotio ns and distinctions. Thus, Lieutenant Hoppenrath, the leader of [he shock troops, Ensign Neuperr, the stormer of the pillbox, and the brave barricade defender, Kimpenhaus, all got to wear the well-earned Iron Cross, First Class, on their breasts_

I didn't bother the hospita ls with my fifth double-wounding, but a ll owed them to heal over the course of my Christmas lea ve. The scra pe to the back of my head gOt better quickly, the shards in my forehea d grew in, to provide co mpany fo r two others that I'd got at Regnieville, one in my left hand, [he other in my earlobe.

STORM Of STEEL

I felt so bad that day that Ilay down in a little piece of trench and fell asleep right away. When I woke up, I read a few pages of Tristram Shandy, which I had with me in my map case, and so, apathetically,like an invalid, I spent the sunny afternoon.

At six-fifteen, a dispatch-rider summoned the company com-

manders to Captain von Weyhe. 'I have some serious news for you. We are going on the offen-

sive. After half an hour's artillery preparation, the battalion will advance at seven o'clock tonight from the western edge of Favreuil, and storm the enemy lines. You are to march on the

church tower at Sapignies.' After a little further discussion, and handshakes all round, we

raced back to our companies, as the bombardment was to start in barely ten minutes' time, and we stiU had quite a stretch ahead of us. I informed my platoon commanders, and had the men

faU in. ' By sections in single file twenty yards apart. Direction half-left,

treetops of Favreuil!' Testimony to the good morale we still enjoyed was that I had

to nominate the man to stay behind to inform the cookers where

to go. No one volunteered. 1 marched along in the van with my company staff and Ser-

geant-Major Reinicke, who knew the area very well. Our artill~ry fire was landing behind hedges and ruins. lr sounded more hke furiou s yapping than anything seriously destructive. Behind us, I saw my sections advancing in perfect Qrder. Alongside th em, shots from aeroplanes sent up puffs of dust, bullets, empty shells and driving bands from shrapnels whizzed with fiendish hissing in between the files of the thin human line. Away on the right lay Beugnatre, heavily attacked, from where jagged lumps of iron buzzed across and stamped themselves on the clayey soil.

The march got a little more uncomfortable still o nce we were over the Beugnatre-Bapaume road. All of a sudden, a spate of

•

MY LA ST ASSAULT

high-explosive shells landed in front of, behind and in the midst of us. We scattered aside, and hurled ourselves into craters. I landed with my knee on something a frightened predecessor had left behind, and had my batman scrape off the worst of it with a knife. .

Around the edge of Favreuil, the clouds hom numerous shell- bursts congregated, and up and down in between them in rapid alternation went the geysers of soil. To find a position for the company, I went on ahead to the first ruins, and then with my ca.ne gave a signal to follow.

The village was fringed with badly shelled huts, behind which parts of the 1St and 2nd Battalions gradually came together. During the last part of the march, a machine-gun had taken its toll I watched from my vantage-point the little string of puffs of dust, in which one or other of the new arrivals would sometimes find himself ca ught as in a net. Among others, Vice-Sergeant- Major Balg of my company got a bullet through the leg.

A figute in brown corduroy strode with equanimity across this fire-swept piece of terrain, and shook me by the hand. Kius and Baje, Captain Junker and Schaper, Schrader, Schlager, Heins, Findeisen, Ht>hlemann and Hoppenrath stood behind a hedge raked with lead and iron and talked through the attack. On many

,a day of wrath we had fought on one and the same battlefield, and today once more the sun, nOw low in the Western sky, was to gild the blood of all or nearly all.

Elements of th e 1st Battalion moved into the castle grounds. Of the 2nd, only my company and the 5th had got through the flaming curtain unscathed. or nearly so. We mad.e our way forward through craters and debris to a sunken roatl on the western edge of the village. On the way I picked up a steel helmet off the floor and put it on - something I only ever did in very dicey situations. To my amazement, ·Favreuil seemed to be completely dead. It appeared as though the defensive line had

'7'

STORM OF STEEL

been abandoned, because the ruins had the o ddly tense feeling of a place that is unoccupied, and that sp urs the eye to utmost vigilance.

Captain von Weyhe - who, tho ugh we didn ' t know this at the rime, was lying all alone and badly hurt in a shell-hole in the village - had ordered th e 5th and 8th Companies fO form the first attacking line, the 6th the second, and the 7th the third. As there was no sign of the 6th or 8th anywhere yet, I decided to go on th e attack without worrying too much about the plan of battle.

By now it was seven o'clock. I saw, against a backdrop of ruined houses and tree stumps, a line of men advancing across the field under moderate rifle fire. It must be the 5th.

I drew up my men in the sunken road, and gave orders to advance in two waves. ' Hundred yards apart. I myself shall be between the first wave and the second.'

It was our last storm. How many times over the last few yea rs we had advanced into the setting sun in a similar frame of mind! us Eparges, Gu illemont, St-Pierre-Vaast, Langemarck, Passchendaele, Mceuvres, Vraucourt, Mary! Another go ry carni- val beckoned.

We left the sun ken road as if it had been the exercise ground, except for the fact that ' I myself', as I had expressed it just now, suddenly found myself wa lking alongside Lieutenant Schrader on open ground way ahead.

I felt a little better, but there were still butterflies. H alle r told ' me later, as he said goodbye to me before leaving for South America, that the man next to him had said: 'You know some- thing, I don't think our lieutenant is going to come ou t of this show alive!' That strange man, whose wild and destructive spi rit I so loved, told me thin gs on that occasion which made me realize that the simple soldier weighs the heart of his commanding officer as in a goldsmith's scales. I felt pretty weary, and I had thought all al ong that this attack was a mistake. Even so, this is the one I most often recall. It didn't have th e mighty impetus of the Great

2.80 .

MY LAST ASSAULT

Battle, its bubbling exuberance; on the other hand, I had a very impartial feeling, as if I were able to view myself through binocu- la rs. For the first time in the entire war, I heard the hissing of individual bullets, as if they were whistling past some target. The landscape was utterly pellucid.

Isolated rifle shots rang o ut in front of us; perhaps the vi ll age walls in tbe background kept us from being toO dearly seen. With my cane in my left hand, and my pistol in my right, I tramped on ahead, not quite realizing I was leaving the line of the 5th Company be hind me and to my right. As I marched, 1 noticed that my Iron Cross had become detached and fallen on the ground somewhere. Schrader, my servant and I started look- ing for it, even though concealed snipers were shooting a t us. At last, Schrader picked it up out of a tuft of grass, and I pinned it back on.

We were coming downhill. Indistinct figures moved against a background of red-brown clay. A machine-gun spat out its gOutS of bullets. The feeling of hopelessness increased. Even so, we broke imo a run, w hile the gunners were finding their range.

We jumptd over several snipers' nests and hurriedly excavated trenches. In mid-jump ove r a slightly better-made trench, I felt a piercing jolt in the chest - as though I had been hit like a game~ bird. With a sharp cry that seemed to cost me all the air I had, I spun on my axis and crashed to the gro und.

It had gOt me at last. At the same time as feeling I had been hit, I felt the bu llet taking away my life. I had felt Death's band once before, on the road at Mary - but this time his grip was firmer and more determined. As I came down heavily on the bottom of the trench, I was convinced it was all ove r. Strangely, that moment is o ne of very few in my life of which I am able to say they were utterly happy. I understood, as in a flash of lightning, the true inner purpose and form of my life. I felt surprise and disbelief that it was to end there and the n, but this surprise had somerhing untroubled an d almost merry about it. Then I heard the firing

,8,

STORM OF STEE L

grow less, as if I were a stone sinking un der the surface of some tur bul ent water. Where I was going, t here was neither war nor ehmity.

,8,

We Fight OUf Way Through

•

Often eno ugh I have see n wo unded men dreaming in a world of th eir own, ta king no furth er part in the noise of battl e, th e summit of human passions all aro und them; and I may say I know something of how they must have felt.

The ti me I lay completely unco nscious can't have bee n that lo ng in terms of chronometry - it pro ba.bly co rrespo nded to th e time it took our first wave to reach t he line where I fe ll. I awo ke with a feeling of distress, jammed in between na rrow clay walls, whi le t he call : 'Stretcher-bearers! The compa ny commander's been hurt !' sli pped al ong a cowering line of men.

An older man from anot her compa ny bent over me with a ki ndl y expression, un did my belt and opened my tun ic. He saw two round bloody sta ins - o ne in the ri ght of my chest, the other in my back. I fel t as though I were na iled to th e earth, and the burn ing ai r of the narrow trench bathed me in to rmenting sweat. My kindly helper gave me air by fa nning me with my map case. I struggled to breathe, and hoped for da rkn ess to fa ll soon.

Suddenly a fire-sto rm broke loose fwm Ithe di,coc ti ol" of S'IP ies. No question, this smooth rumbling, this incessant and stamping signified more than merely the t urning b3(;k! ill-conceived little attack. Over me I saw the granite Lieutenant Schrad er under his steel helmet, loading like a machin e. There was a conversa ti on be tween us till

,8,

STORM OF S TEEL

little like the tower scene in St Joan. Albeit, I di dn't feel amused, because I had the dear sense I was done for.

Schrader rarely had time to toss me a few words, because I didn' t teally figure any more. Feeling my own feebleness, I tried to glean from his expression how things stood fo[ us up there. It appeared that th e atta ckers were gai ning ground, because I hea rd him call out more frequently and with greater alarm to his neigh· bours, po inting out targets that must be very d ose at hand.

Suddenly, as when a dam breaks under the pressure of flood water, the cry went up: 'They've broken thro ugh on the left! They're round the back of us!' go ing from mouth to mouth. At that terrible instant, I felt my life force beginning to glimme r again like a spark. I was able to push two fingers into a mouse· or mole· hole level with my arm. Slowly I pulled myself up, while the blood that was bogging my lungs trickled out of my wounds. As it dr ai ned away, I felt relief. With bare head and ope n tunic, I stared o ut at the battle.

A line of men with packs plunged straight ahead through whitish swathes of smoke. A few stopped and lay where they fe ll, ot hers performed somersets like rabbits do. A hundred yards in front of us, the last of them were drawn into t he cratered landscape. They mUSt have belonged to a very new outfit that hadn't been tested under fire, beca use they showed the courage of inexperi ence.

Four tanks crawled over a ridge, as tho ugh pulled alo ng on a string. In a matter of minu tes, the' artillery had smashed them to the ground . O ne bro ke in half, li ke a child's toy car. O n the right, the valiant cadet Mohrmann co llapsed wit h a death shout. H e was as bra ve as a young li on; I had seen tha t at Cambrai already. H e was felled by a bullet sq uare in the middle of his fo rehead, better aimed than the one that he had once bandaged up for me.

The affair didn't seem to be irrevocably lost. I whispered to Co rpo ral Wilsky to creep a little left , and enfilade the gap in the

WE FIG HT OU R WA Y THROUGH

line with his machine·gun. H e came back stra ight away

reported that twenty ya rds beyond everyone had su;rl~:~: That was part of another .regi men t. $0 far I had been tuft of grass with my left hand like a steering column. succeeded in turning round, an d a strange sight met British had begun to penetrate sectors of th e line to the left and were sweeping them with fixed bayonets. Before I gra sp the proximity of the danger, I was distracted by more sta rtlin g development: at ou r backs were other at"" coming towa rd s us, escorting prisoners with their hands

It seemed that the enemy must have bro ken into the a:,~:':~ village only moments after we had left it to make ou r , th at instant, they tightened th e noose round ou r necks; we completely lost co nta ct. I

The scene was getting more and more animated. A British and Ge rma ns surrounded us and called on us to drop weapons. It was pandemo nium, as on a sinking ship. voice, I called upon the men near me to fight on. They shot friend and foe. A ring of sil ent or yelling bodies circled our little band. To th e left of me, two colossa l British soldiers plunged th eir bayonets into a piece of trench, fr om where I could beseeching ha nds thrust out.

Among us, toO, there were now loud yells: ' It's no use! yo ur guns down! Don't shoot, comrades!'

I looked at the two officers who were standing in the :;~~~ with me. They smiled back, shrugged, and dropped their b4

th e ground. There was only the choice between captivity and a bullet.

crept out of the trench, and reeled towards Favreuil. It was . a bad drea m, where you can 't pick yo ur feet off the floor. only thing in my favour was perhaps the utter confusion, in 'Nhicl'l some were a lready exchangi ng cigarettes, w hile others were butchering eac h o ther. Two Englishmen, who were 'leading b,,:kJ a trOOP of prisoners from the 99th, confronted me. I a imed mlri

STORM OF STEEL

little like the tower scene in St Joan. Albeit, I didn't feel amused, because I had the clear sense I was done for.

Schrader rarely had time to toss me a few words, because I didn't really figure any more. Feeling my own feebleness, I tried to glean from his expression how things stood fat us up there. It appeared that the attackers were gaining ground, because I heard him call out more frequently and with grearer alarm to his neigh- bours, pointing out targets that must be very close at hand.

Suddenly, as when a dam breaks under the pressure of flood water, the cry went up: 'They' ve broken through on the left! They're round the back of us!' going from mouth to mouth. At that terrible instant, I felt my life force beginning to glimmer again like a spark. I was able to push two fingers into a mouse- or mole-hole level with my arm. Slowly I pulled myself up, while the blood that was bogging my lungs trickled out of my wounds. As it drained away, I felt relief. With bare head and open runic, I stared out at the battle.

A line of men with packs plunged straight ahead through whitish swathes of smoke. A few stopped and lay where they fell, others perfo rmed somersets like rabbits do. A hundred yards in front of us, the last of them were drawn into the cratered landscape. They must have belonged to a very new outfit that hadn't been tested under fire, because they showed the courage of inexperience.

Four tanks crawled over a ridge, as though pulled al ong on a string. In a matter of minutes, the artillery had smashed them to the ground. One broke in half,like a child's toy car. On the right, the valiant cadet Mohrmann collapsed with a death shout. He was as brave as a· young lion; I had seen that at Cambrai already. He was felled by a bullet square in the middle of his forehead, better aimed than the one that he had once bandaged up for me.

'- The affair didn't seem to be irrevocably lost. I whispered to Corporal Wilsky to creep a little left, and enfilade the gap in the

WE FIGHT OUR WAY THROUCH

line with his machine-gun. He came back straight away and reported that twenty yards beyond everyone had surrendered. That was part of another regiment. So far I had been clutching a tuft of grass with my left hand like a steering column. Now I succeeded in turning round, and a strange sight met my eyes. The British had begun to' penetrate sectors of the line to the left of us, and were sweeping them with fixed bayonets. Before I could grasp the proximity of the danger, I was distracted by another, more startling development: at our backs were other attackers,

• coming towards us, escorting prisoners with their hands raised! It seemed that the enemy must have broken into the abandoned village only moments after we had left it to make our attack. At that instant, they tightened the noose round our necks; we had completely lost contact.

The scene was getting more and more animated. A ring of British and Germans surrounded us and called on us to drop our weapons. It was pandemonium, as on a sinking ship.ln my feeble voice, I called upon the men near me to fight on. They shot at friend and foe. A ring of silent or yelling bodies circled our little band. To the left of me, twO colossal British soldiers plunged their bayonets into a piece of trench, from where I could see beseeching hands thrust out.

Among us, too, there were now loud yells: ' It's no use! Put your guns down! Don' t shoot, comrades! '

I looked at the twO officers who were standing in the trench with me. They smiled back, shrugged, and dropped their belts on the ground.

There was only the choice between captivity and a bullet. I crept out of the trench, and reeled towards Favreuil. It was as in a bad dream, where you can't pick your feet off the £Ioor. The only thing in my favour was perhaps the utter confusion, in which some were already exchanging cigarettes, while others were still butchering each other. Two Englishmen, who were ·leading back a troop of prisoners from the 99th, confronted me. I aimed my

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pistol at the nearer of the two, and pulled the trigger. The other blazed his rifle at me and missed. My hurried movements pushed the blood from my lungs in bright spurts. I could breathe more easily, and started running a long the trench. Behind a traverse crouched Lieutenant Schlager in the middle of a group of blazing rifles. They fell in with me. A few British, who were making their way over the field, stopped, set down a Lewis gun on the ground, and fired at us. Except for Sc hlager and me and a couple of oth ers, everyone went down. Schlager, who was extremely shortsighted, told me later that a ll he had been able to see was my map case flying up and down. That was his signal. The loss of blood gave me the lightness and airiness of intoxication, the only thing that worried me was that I might break down too soon.

Finally, we reached a semi-circular earthworks to the right of Favreuil, from where half a dozen heavy ma chine-guns were spitting lead at friend and foe alike. Either the noose hadn't been completely drawn tight, or else this was o ne last pocket of resistance; we had been lucky to find it. Enemy bullets shattered on sandbags, officers yel led, excited men leaped here and there. A medical officer from the 6th Company ripped my tunic off, and told me to lie down immediately, otherwise I might bleed to death in a matter of minutes.

I was rolled in a tarpaulin and dragged to the entrance of Favreuil, accompanied by some of my soldiers, and some from the 6th. The village was already heaving with British, so it was inevitable that we soon came under fire from very short range. The medical officer of the 6th, who was holding the back end of my tarpaulin, went down, shot in the head; I fell with him.

The little group had thrown themselves flat on the ground, and, lashed by bullets, were trying ro creep to the nearest dip in the ground.

I stayed behind on the field, bundled up in my ta rpaulin, almost apathetically waiting for the shot that would put an end to this Odyssey.

,86

WE F I G HT OUR WAY THROUGH

But even in my hopeless pli ght I was not forsaken; my com~ panions were keeping an eye on me, and soon fresh efforts were made to rescue me. At my ear I heard the voice of Corpo ral Hengstmann, a tall blond Lower Saxon: 'I'll take you on my back, sir, either we'll get through or we won 't! '

Unfortunately, we didn't get through; there were too many rifles waiting at the edge of the village. Hengstmann started running, while I wrapped my arms around his neck. Straight away they started banging away, as if it were a prize-shoot at 'h funfair. After a few bounds, a soh metallic buzz indicated that Hengstmann ha d stopped one. He collapsed gentl y under me, making no sound, but I could feel that Death had claimed him even before we touched the ground. I freed myself from his arms, which were still securing me, and saw that a bullet had drilled through his steel helmet and his temple. The brave fellow was the son of a teacher in Letter near Hanover. As soon as I was able to walk, I called on his parents, and gave them my report o n their so n.

This discouraging example didn't deter the next volunteer from making a bid to rescue me. This was Sergeant Strichalsky of the Medical Corps. He put me on his shoulders, and, while a second shower of bullets whistled around us, he carried me safely to the shelter of a little hump of ground.

It was getting dark. My comrades took the tarpaulin off a body and ca rried me across a deserted stretch of ground, under the jagged flash of ordnance, near or far. I got to know what a terribl e thing it is to have to str uggle for breath. Smoke from a cigarette that someone ten steps ahead of me was smoking almost choked me.

At last we got to a dressing-station, where my friend Dr Key was in charge. He mixed me some de licious lemonade, and gave me a morphine injection that put me to revivifying sleep.

The wild drive to the hospital the next day was the last difficult challenge to my powers of survival. Then I was in the hands of

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the sisters, and was able to carry on reading Tristram Shandy from where I had had to put it down for th e order to attack.

Friendly solicitude got me safely through a period of setbacks - something that seems to be typical of lung shots. Men and officers from the division came to visit. Those who had taken pardn the storm at Sapignies, admittedly, were no more, or else, like Kius, they were in British captivity. With the first shells landing in Cambrai as the enemy slowly gained the upper hand, M. and Mme Plancot sent me a kind letter, a tin of condensed milk they cou ld ill afford to spare, and the only melon their garden had produced. There were bitter times ahead for them. My last batman was in the tradition established by his many predecessors; he stopped with me, even though he wasn't entitled to hospital ratio ns, and had to go begging down in the kitchen.

During the endless hours flat on your back, you try to distract yourself to pass the time; once, I reckoned up my wounds. Leaving out trifles such as ricochets and grazes, I was hit at least fourteen times, these being five bullecs, twO 'shell splinters, one shrapnel ball, four hand-grenade splinters and two bullet splinters, which, with entry and exit wounds, left me an even twenty scars. In the course of this war, where so much of the firing was done blindly into empty space, I still mana ged to get myself targeted no fewer than eleven times. I felt every justification, therefore, in donning the go ld wound·stripes, which arrived for me one day.

A fortnight later, I was lying on the rumbling bed of a hospital train. The German landscape was already bathed in the lustre of early autumn. I was fortunate enough to be taken off the train at Hanover, and was put up in the Clementine infirmary. Among the visitors who soon arrived, I was particularly glad to see my brother; he had continued to grow since his wounding, although his right side, which was where he was hurt, hadn't.

I shared my room with a young fighter pilot from Richthofen's squadron, a man named Wenzel, one of the tall and fearless types our nation still produces. He lived up to the motto of his

WE FIGHT OUR WAY THROUGH

squadron, ' Hard - and crazy with it!' and had already brought down a dozen opponents in single combat, although the last had sp li ntered his upper arm with a bullet first.

The first time.I went out, I went with him, my brother, and a few comrades who were awa iting their transport, to the. rooms of the old Hanoverian Gibraltar Regiment. Since our wa r- worthiness was being put into question, we felt the urgent need to prove ourselves by vaulting an enormous armchair. We didn't do too well; Wenzel broke his arm all over again, and the follow-

• ing day I was back in bed with a temperature of forty - yes, my chart even threatened the red line beyond which the doctors are powerless to he lp. At such high temperatures, you lose your sense of time; while the sisters were fighting for my life, I was in those fever dreams that are often very amusing.

On one of those days, it was 22 September 1.918, I received the following telegram from Genera l von Busse:

' His Majesty the Kaiser has bestowed on you the order pour Ie Merite. In the name of the whole division,l co ngratulate you.'