All quiet on the Western Front
me and then lie on the edge of the shell-hole, half in and half out.
There I hear sounds and drop back. Suspicious sounds can be detected
clearly despite the noise of the artillery-fire. I listen; the sound
is behind me. They are our people moving along the trench. Now I
hear muffled voices. To judge by the tone that might be Kat talking.
At once a new warmth flows through me. These voices, these few quiet
words, these footsteps in the trench behind me recall me at a bound
from the terrible loneliness and fear of death by which I had been
almost destroyed. They are more to me than life, these voices, they
are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the
strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere: they are the
voices of my comrades.
I am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in the
darkness;--I belong to them and they to me, we all share the same
fear and the same life, we are nearer than lovers, in a simpler, a
harder way; I could bury my face in them, in these voices, these
words that have saved me and will stand by me.
* *
Cautiously I glide out over the edge and snake my way forward. I
shuffle along on all fours a bit farther, I keep track of my
bearings, look around me and observe the distribution of the gunfire
so as to be able to find my way back. Then I try to get in touch
with the others.
I am still afraid, but it is an intelligent fear, an extraordinarily
heightened caution. The night is windy and shadows flit hither and
thither in the flicker of the gunfire. It reveals too little and too
much. Often I peer ahead, but always for nothing. Thus I advance a
long way and then turn back in a wide curve. I have not established
touch with the others. Every yard nearer our trench fills me with
confidence;--and with haste, too. It would be bad to get lost now.
Then a new fear lays hold of me. I can no longer remember the
direction. Quiet, I squat in a shell-hole and try to locate myself.
More than once it has happened that some fellow has jumped joyfully
into a trench only then to discover that it was the wrong one.
After a little time I listen again, but still I am not sure. The
confusion of shell-holes now seems so bewildering that I can no
longer tell in my agitation which way I should go. Perhaps I am
crawling parallel to the lines, and that might go on for ever. So I
crawl round once again in a wide curve.
These damned rockets! They seem to burn for an hour, and a man
cannot make the least movement without bringing the bullets whistling
round.
But there is nothing for it, I must get out. Falteringly I work my
way farther, I move off over the ground like a crab and rip my hands
sorely on the jagged splinters, as sharp as razor blades. Often I
think that the sky is becoming lighter on the horizon, but it may be
merely my imagination. Then gradually I realize that to crawl in the
right direction is a matter of life or death.
A shell crashes. Almost immediately two others. And then it begins
in earnest. A bombardment. Machine-guns rattle. Now there is
nothing for it but to stay lying low. Apparently an attack is
coming. Everywhere the rockets shoot up. Unceasing.
I lie huddled in a large shell-hole, my legs in the water up to the
belly. When the attack starts I will let myself fall into the water,
with my face as deep in the mud as I can keep it without suffocating.
I must pretend to be dead.
Suddenly I hear the barrage lift. At once I slip down into the
water, my helmet on the nape of my neck and my mouth just clear so
that I can get a breath of air.
I lie motionless;--somewhere something clanks, it stamps and stumbles
nearer--all my nerves become taut and icy. It clatters over me and
away, the first wave has passed. I have but this one shattering
thought: What will you do if someone jumps into your shell-hole?--
Swiftly I pull out my little dagger, grasp it fast and bury it in my
hand once again under the mud. If anyone jumps in here I will go for
him. It hammers in my forehead; at once, stab him clean through the
throat, so that he cannot call out; that's the only way; he will be
just as frightened as I am, when in terror we fall upon one another,
then I must be first.
Now our batteries are firing. A shell lands near me. That makes me
savage with fury, all it needs now is to be killed by our own shells;
I curse and grind my teeth in the mud; it is a raving frenzy; in the
end all I can do is groan and pray.
The crash of the shells bursts in my ears. If our fellows make a
counter-raid I will be saved. I press my head against the earth and
listen to the muffled thunder, like the explosions of quarrying--and
raise it again to listen for the sounds on top.
The machine-guns rattle. I know our barbed wire entanglements are
strong and almost undamaged;--parts of them are charged with a
powerful electric current. The rifle fire increases. They have not
broken through; they have to retreat.
I sink down again, huddled, strained to the uttermost. The banging,
the creeping, the clanging becomes audible. One single cry yelling
amongst it all. They are raked with fire, the attack is repulsed.
* *
Already it has become somewhat lighter. Steps hasten over me. The
first. Gone. Again, another. The rattle of machine-guns becomes an
unbroken chain. Just as I am about to turn round a little, something
heavy stumbles, and with a crash a body falls over me into the
shell-hole, slips down, and lies across me----
I do not think at all, I make no decision--I strike madly home, and
feel only how the body suddenly convulses, then becomes limp, and
collapses. When I recover myself, my hand is sticky and wet.
The man gurgles. It sounds to me as though he bellows, every gasping
breath is like a cry, a thunder--but it is only my heart pounding. I
want to stop his mouth, stuff it with earth, stab him again, he must
be quiet, he is betraying me; now at last I regain control of myself,
but have suddenly become so feeble that I cannot any more lift my
hand against him.
So I crawl away to the farthest corner and stay there, my eyes glued
on him, my hand grasping the knife--ready, if he stirs, to spring at
him again. But he won't do so any more, I can hear that already in
his gurgling.
I can see him indistinctly. I have but one desire, to get away. If
it is not soon it will be too light; it will be difficult enough now.
Then as I try to raise up my head I see it is impossible already.
The machine-gun fire so sweeps the ground that I would be shot
through and through before I could make one jump.
I test it once with my helmet, which I take off and hold up to find
out the level of the shots. The next moment it is knocked out of my
hand by a bullet. The fire is sweeping very low over the ground. I
am not far enough from the enemy line to escape being picked off by
one of the snipers if I attempt to get away.
The light increases. Burning I wait for our attack. My hands are
white at the knuckles, I clench them so tightly in my longing for the
fire to cease so that my comrades may come.
Minute after minute trickles away. I dare not look again at the dark
figure in the shell-hole. With an effort I look past it and wait,
wait. The bullets hiss, they make a steel net, never ceasing, never
ceasing.
Then I notice my bloody hand and suddenly feel nauseated. I take
some earth and rub the skin with it, now my hand is muddy and the
blood cannot be seen any more.
The fire does not diminish. It is equally heavy from both sides.
Our fellows have probably given me up for lost long ago.
* *
It is early morning, clear and grey. The gurgling continues, I stop
my ears, but soon take my fingers away again, because then I cannot
hear the other sound.
The figure opposite me moves. I shrink together and involuntarily
look at it. Then my eyes remain glued to it. A man with a small
pointed beard lies there, his head is fallen to one side, one arm is
half-bent, his head rests helplessly upon it. The other hand lies on
his chest, it is bloody.
He is dead, I say to myself, he must be dead, he doesn't feel
anything any more; it is only the body that is gurgling there. Then
the head tries to raise itself, for a moment the groaning becomes
louder, his forehead sinks back upon his arm. The man is not dead,
he is dying, but he is not dead. I drag myself toward him, hesitate,
support myself on my hands, creep a bit farther, wait, again a
terrible journey of three yards, a long, a terrible journey. At last
I am beside him.
Then he opens his eyes. He must have heard me and gazes at me with a
look of utter terror. The body lies still, but in the eyes there is
such an extraordinary expression of flight that for a moment I think
they have power enough to carry the body off with them. Hundreds of
miles away with one bound. The body is still, perfectly still,
without sound, the gurgle has ceased, but the eyes cry out, yell, all
the life is gathered together in them for one tremendous effort to
flee, gathered together there in a dreadful terror of death, of me.
My legs give way and I drop on my elbows. "No, no," I whisper.
The eyes follow me. I am powerless to move so long as they are there.
Then his hand slips slowly from his breast, only a little bit, it
sinks just a few inches, but this movement breaks the power of the
eyes. I bend forward, shake my head and whisper: "No, no, no," I
raise one hand, I must show him that I want to help him, I stroke his
forehead.
The eyes shrink back as the hand comes, then they lose their stare,
the eyelids droop lower, the tension is past. I open his collar and
place his head more comfortably upright.
His mouth stands half open, it tries to form words. The lips are
dry. My water bottle is not there. I have not brought it with me.
But there is water in the mud, down at the bottom of the crater. I
climb down, take out my handkerchief, spread it out, push it under
and scoop up the yellow water that strains through into the hollow of
my hand.
He gulps it down. I fetch some more. Then I unbutton his tunic in
order to bandage him if it is possible. In any case I must do it, so
that if the fellows over there capture me they will see that I wanted
to help him, and so will not shoot me. He tries to resist, but his
hand is too feeble. The shirt is stuck and will not come away, it is
buttoned at the back. So there is nothing for it but to cut it off.
I look for the knife and find it again. But when I begin to cut the
shirt the eyes open once more and the cry is in them again and the
demented expression, so that I must close them, press them shut and
whisper: "I want to help you, Comrade, camerade, camerade,
camerade----" eagerly repeating the word, to make him understand.
There are three stabs. My field dressing covers them, the blood runs
out under it, I press it tighter; there; he groans.
That is all I can do. Now we must wait, wait.
* *
These hours.... The gurgling starts again--but how slowly a man
dies! For this I know--he cannot be saved. Indeed, I have tried to
tell myself that he will be, but at noon this pretence breaks down
and melts before his groans. If only I had not lost my revolver
crawling about, I would shoot him. Stab him I cannot.
By noon I am groping on the outer limits of reason. Hunger devours
me, I could almost weep for something to eat, I cannot struggle
against it. Again and again I fetch water for the dying man and
drink some myself.
This is the first man I have killed with my hands, whom I can see
close at hand, whose death is my doing. Kat and Kropp and Müller
have experienced it already, when they have hit someone; it happens
to many, in hand-to-hand fighting especially--