All quiet on the Western Front
is tasty--but in another way it is vile, because the fat red balls
have long been a sign of a bad time coming. Our forebodings increase
as rum is served out. We drink it of course; but are not greatly
comforted.
For days we loaf about and make war on the rats. Ammunition and
hand-grenades become more plentiful. We even overhaul the
bayonets--that is to say, the ones that have a saw on the blunt edge.
If the fellows over there catch a man with one of those he's killed
at sight. In the next sector some of our men were found whose noses
were cut off and their eyes poked out with their own saw-bayonets.
Their mouths and noses were stuffed with sawdust so that they
suffocated.
Some of the recruits have bayonets of this kind; we take them away
and give them the ordinary kind.
But the bayonet has practically lost its importance. It is usually
the fashion now to charge with bombs and spades only. The sharpened
spade is a more handy and many-sided weapon; not only can it be used
for jabbing a man under the chin, but it is much better for striking
with because of its greater weight, and if one hits between the neck
and shoulder it easily cleaves as far down as the chest. The bayonet
frequently jams on the thrust and then a man has to kick hard on the
other fellow's belly to pull it out again; and in the interval he may
easily get one himself. And what's more the blade often gets broken
off.
At night they send over gas. We expect the attack to follow and lie
with our masks on, ready to tear them off as soon as the first shadow
appears.
Dawn approaches without anything happening--only the everlasting,
nerve-wracking roll behind the enemy lines, trains, trains, lorries,
lorries; but what are they concentrating? Our artillery fires on it
continually, but still it does not cease.
We have tired faces and avoid each other's eyes. "It will be like
the Somme," says Kat gloomily. "There we were shelled steadily for
seven days and nights." Kat has lost all his fun since we have been
here, which is bad, for Kat is an old front-hog, and can smell what
is coming. Only Tjaden seems pleased with the good rations and the
rum; he thinks we might even go back to rest without anything
happening at all.
It almost looks like it. Day after day passes. At night I squat in
the listening-post. Above me the rockets and parachute-lights shoot
up and float down again. I am cautious and tense, my heart thumps.
My eyes turn again and again to the luminous dial of my watch; the
hands will not budge. Sleep hangs on my eyelids, I work my toes in
my boots in order to keep awake. Nothing happens till I am
relieved;--only the everlasting rolling over there. Gradually we
grow calmer and play skat and poker continually. Perhaps we will be
lucky.
All day the sky is hung with observation balloons. There is a rumour
that the enemy are going to put tanks over and use low-flying planes
for the attack. But that interests us less than what we hear of the
new flame-throwers.
* *
We wake up in the middle of the night. The earth booms. Heavy fire
is falling on us. We crouch into corners. We distinguish shells of
every calibre.
Each man lays hold of his things and looks again every minute to
reassure himself that they are still there. The dug-out heaves, the
night roars and flashes. We look at each other in the momentary
flashes of light, and with pale faces and pressed lips shake our
heads.
Every man is aware of the heavy shells tearing down the parapet,
rooting up the embankment and demolishing the upper layers of
concrete. When a shell lands in the trench we note how the hollow,
furious blast is like a blow from the paw of a raging beast of prey.
Already by morning a few of the recruits are green and vomiting.
They are too inexperienced.
Slowly the grey light trickles into the post and pales the flashes of
the shells. Morning is come. The explosion of mines mingles with
the gun-fire. That is the most dementing convulsion of all. The
whole region where they go up becomes one grave.
The reliefs go out, the observers stagger in, covered with dirt, and
trembling. One lies down in silence in the corner and eats, the
other, a reservist-reinforcement, sobs; twice he has been flung over
the parapet by the blast of the explosions without getting any more
than shell-shock.
The recruits are eyeing him. We must watch them, these things are
catching, already some lips begin to quiver. It is good that it is
growing daylight; perhaps the attack will come before noon.
The bombardment does not diminish. It is falling in the rear too.
As far as one can see it spouts fountains of mud and iron. A wide
belt is being raked.
The attack does not come, but the bombardment continues. Slowly we
become mute. Hardly a man speaks. We cannot make ourselves
understood.
Our trench is almost gone. At many places it is only eighteen inches
high, it is broken by holes, and craters, and mountains of earth. A
shell lands square in front of our post. At once it is dark. We are
buried and must dig ourselves out. After an hour the entrance is
clear again, and we are calmer because we have had something to do.
Our company commander scrambles in and reports that two dug-outs are
gone. The recruits calm themselves when they see him. He says that
an attempt will be made to bring up food this evening.
That sounds reassuring. No one had thought of it except Tjaden. Now
the outside world seems to draw a little nearer: if food can be
brought up, think the recruits, then it can't really be so bad.
We do not disabuse them; we know that food is as important as
ammunition and only for that reason must be brought up.
But it miscarries. A second party goes out, and it also turns back.
Finally Kat tries, and even he reappears without accomplishing
anything. No one gets through, not even a fly is small enough to get
through such a barrage.
We pull in our belts tighter and chew every mouthful three times as
long. Still the food does not last out; we are damnably hungry. I
take out a scrap of bread, eat the white and put the crust back in my
knapsack; from time to time I nibble at it.
* *
The night is unbearable. We cannot sleep, but stare ahead of us and
doze. Tjaden regrets that we wasted the gnawed pieces of bread on
the rats. We would gladly have them again to eat now. We are short
of water, too, but not seriously yet.
Towards morning, while it is still dark, there is some excitement.
Through the entrance rushes in a swarm of fleeing rats that try to
storm the walls. Torches light up the confusion. Everyone yells and
curses and slaughters. The madness and despair of many hours unloads
itself in this outburst. Faces are distorted, arms strike out, the
beasts scream; we just stop in time to avoid attacking one another.
The onslaught has exhausted us. We lie down to wait again. It is a
marvel that our post has had no casualties so far. It is one of the
few deep dug-outs.
A corporal creeps in; he has a loaf of bread with him. Three people
have had the luck to get through during the night and bring some
provisions. They say the bombardment extends undiminished as far as
the artillery lines. It is a mystery where the enemy gets all his
shells.
We wait and wait. By midday what I expected happens. One of the
recruits has a fit. I have been watching him for a long time,
grinding his teeth and opening and shutting his fists. These hunted,
protruding eyes, we know them too well. During the last few hours he
has had merely the appearance of calm. He had collapsed like a
rotten tree.
Now he stands up, stealthily creeps across the floor, hesitates a
moment and then glides towards the door. I intercept him and say:
"Where are you going?"
"I'll be back in a minute," says he, and tries to push past me.
"Wait a bit, the shelling will stop soon."
He listens and for a moment his eye becomes clear. Then again he has
the glowering eyes of a mad dog, he is silent, he shoves me aside.
"One minute, lad," I say. Kat notices. Just as the recruit shakes
me off Kat jumps in and we hold him.
Then he begins to rave: "Leave me alone, let me go out, I will go
out!"
He won't listen to anything and hits out, his mouth is wet and pours
out words, half choked, meaningless words. It is a case of
claustrophobia, he feels as though he is suffocating here and wants
to get out at any price. If we let him go he would run about
everywhere regardless of cover. He is not the first.
Though he raves and his eyes roll, it can't be helped, we have to
give him a hiding to bring him to his senses. We do it quickly and
mercilessly, and at last he sits down quietly. The others have
turned pale; let's hope it deters them. This bombardment is too much
for the poor devils, they have been sent straight from a
recruiting-depot into a barrage that is enough to turn an old
soldier's hair grey.
After this affair the sticky, close atmosphere works more than ever
on our nerves. We sit as if in our graves waiting only to be closed
in.
Suddenly it howls and flashes terrifically, the dug-out cracks in all
its joints under a direct hit, fortunately only a light one that the
concrete blocks are able to withstand. It rings metallically, the
walls reel, rifles, helmets, earth, mud, and dust fly everywhere.
Sulphur fumes pour in.
If we were in one of those light dug-outs that they have been
building lately instead of this deep one, not one of us would now be
alive.
But the effect is bad enough even so. The recruit starts to rave
again and two others follow suit. One jumps up and rushes out, we
have trouble with the other two. I start after the one who escapes
and wonder whether to shoot him in the leg--then it shrieks again, I
fling myself down and when I stand up the wall of the trench is
plastered with smoking splinters, lumps of flesh, and bits of
uniform. I scramble back.
The first recruit seems actually to have gone insane. He butts his
head against the wall like a goat. We must try to-night to take him
to the rear. Meanwhile we bind him, but in such a way that in case
of attack he can be released at once.
Kat suggests a game of skat: it is easier when a man has something to
do. But it is no use, we listen for every explosion that comes
close, miscount the tricks, and fail to follow suit. We have to give
it up. We sit as though in a hissing boiler that is being belaboured
from without on all sides.
Night again. We are deadened by the strain--a deadly tension that
scrapes along one's spine like a gapped knife. Our legs refuse to
move, our hands tremble, our bodies are a thin skin stretched
painfully over repressed madness, over an almost irresistible,
bursting roar. We have neither flesh nor muscles any longer, we dare
not look at one another for fear of some incalculable thing. So we
shut our teeth--it will end--it will end--perhaps we will come
through.
Suddenly the nearer explosions cease. The shelling continues but it
has lifted and falls behind us, our trench is free. We seize the
hand-grenades, pitch them out in front of the dug-out and jump after
them. The bombardment has stopped and a heavy barrage now falls
behind us. The attack has come.
No one would believe that in this howling waste there could still be
men; but steel helmets now appear on all sides out of the trench, and
fifty yards from us a machine-gun is already in position and barking.
The wire-entanglements are torn to pieces. Yet they offer some
obstacle. We see the storm-troops coming. Our artillery opens fire.
Machine-guns rattle, rifles crack. The charge works its way across.
Haie and Kropp begin with the hand-grenades. They throw as fast as