The reliefs go out and the observers stumble in, trembling and covered with dirt. One lies down in a corner without saying anything and starts to eat, the other, one of the older reservists, just sobs; he has been thrown over the parapet twice by the blast without suffering anything more than shell shock.
The recruits are looking at him. That sort of thing is contagious, and we have to keep an eye on it; already a few lips are starting to quiver. Its a good thing that it is daylight; perhaps the attack will come this morning.
The shelling doesnt die down. It is behind us as well. All around, as far as you can see, fountains of mud and iron are shooting up. They are raking a very broad belt indeed.
The attack doesnt come, but the bombardment goes on. Gradually we become deaf. Hardly anyone speaks any more. Its impossible to understand one another anyway.
Our trench has been shelled nearly to pieces. In several places there is less than a couple of feet of wall left standing, and it is full of holes, craters and piles of earth. A shell bursts just in front of our post. Immediately everything goes dark. We have been buried and have to dig ourselves out. After an hour the entrance is clear again, and we are a bit calmer because we have had something to occupy us.
Our company commander climbs in and reports that two of the dugouts are gone. The recruits calm down when they see him. He tells us that they are going to try to get food up to us tonight.
That sounds comforting. No one had given it any thought except Tjaden. Food is something else that might bring the outside world a bit closer if food is going to be brought in, then it cant be as bad as all that, reckon the recruits. We dont contradict them, although we know that food is just as important as ammunition, and it is only for that reason that it has to be brought in.
But the attempt to fetch it fails. A second party sets out, but turns back as well. The last group contains Kat, but even he has to return empty-handed. No one can get through, a dogs tail wouldnt be thin enough to slip through that kind of fire.
We tighten our belts and chew each mouthful three times as long as usual. But it still isnt enough; we are bloody hungry. I save myself a crust of bread; I eat the soft part and leave the crust in my pack; every so often I nibble at it.
The night is unbearable. We cant sleep, we just stare in front of us and doze. Tjaden is sorry that we wasted the scraps of bread that had been gnawed on by the rats. He says we should have gone ahead and kept it, and that we would all eat it now. Water is short as well, but we are not quite so badly off on that score.
Towards morning, while it is still dark, there is a sudden commotion. A mob of fleeing rats storms into the dugout and they run up the walls. Our flashlights show up the chaos. Everyone screams and curses and starts hitting out. It is the working off of all the anger and frustration of all those long hours. Faces are distorted, arms flail, the rats squeak and it is hard for us to stop we were almost on the point of setting about each other.
The sudden exertion has exhausted us. We lie down and wait again. It is a miracle that our dugout hasnt had any casualties. It is one of the few deep dugouts still intact.
An NCO climbs down to us; he has some bread with him. Three men did manage to get through last night and fetch some provisions. They reported that the shellfire was constant and just as heavy all the way back to our gun emplacements. They say it is a mystery where the other side is getting so much artillery.
We have to wait, wait. Around midday something happens that I have been expecting to happen. One of the recruits cracks. I have been watching him for a long time, seeing the way he has been constantly grinding his teeth and clenching and unclenching his fists. We are all too familiar with those hunted, wild eyes. In the last few hours he seems to have quietened down, but it isnt real. He has collapsed in on himself like a tree that is rotten inside.
Now he gets up and creeps quietly through the dugout, then rushes for the door. I turn over on to my side and ask, Where are you off to?
I wont be a minute, he says, and tries to get past me.
Hang on for a while, the shelling is already dying down a bit.
He listens and his eyes clear for a moment. Then they take on that dull shine again, just like a rabid dog, and he pushes me aside without saying anything.
Just a minute, chum! I shout. Kat sees what is going on. As the recruit pushes me, Kat grabs him and we hold on to him tightly.
Straight away he begins to rave. Let go of me, let me out, I have to get out of here!
He wont listen, and flails out, spitting out words that are gurgling nonsense. Its claustrophobia from being in the dugout, he feels that he is suffocating and has one basic urge: to get outside. If we let him go hed run off somewhere and not take cover. He isnt the first.
Straight away he begins to rave. Let go of me, let me out, I have to get out of here!
He wont listen, and flails out, spitting out words that are gurgling nonsense. Its claustrophobia from being in the dugout, he feels that he is suffocating and has one basic urge: to get outside. If we let him go hed run off somewhere and not take cover. He isnt the first.
Because he is raging and his eyes are rolling, there is nothing for it but to hit him, so that he comes to himself. We do so quickly and without mercy and manage to get him sitting quietly again for the time being. The others turn pale when they see all this; lets hope it scares them off doing the same. This concentrated artillery fire is too much for the poor lads; theyve come straight from the recruiting depot into a bombardment that would give grey hairs even to one of the old hands.
The stifling air in the dugout gets on our nerves even more after this incident. Its as if we were sitting in our own grave, just waiting for someone to bury us.
Suddenly there is a terrible noise and flash of light, and every joint in the dugout creaks under the impact of a direct hit luckily not a heavy one, and one that the concrete blocks could withstand. There is a fearsome metallic rattling, the walls shake, rifles, steel helmets, earth, mud and dust fly around. Sulphurous fumes penetrate the walls. If we had been in one of the light shelters that they are building these days, instead of our solid dugout, wed all be dead by now.
But even so the effect it has is bad enough. The recruit who had the fit earlier is raving again, and two more have joined in. One breaks away and runs for it. We have trouble holding the other two. I rush out after the one who ran away and I wonder if I should shoot him in the leg; then there is a whistling noise, I throw myself flat, and when I get up there are fragments of hot shrapnel, scraps of flesh and torn pieces of uniform spattered on the walls of the trench. I scramble back inside.
The first recruit seems to have gone completely crazy. If we let go of him he butts his head against the wall like a goat. Tonight we shall have to try to get him back into the rear zone. For the moment we tie him up securely, but in such a way that we can release him if there is an attack.
Kat suggests a game of cards; what else can we do, perhaps it will make things easier? But it is no good, we are listening to every impact that sounds close, we lose count and we lead the wrong suits. We have to give up. Its as if we were sitting inside a massive echoing metal boiler that is being pounded on every side.
Another night. The tension has worn us out. It is a deadly tension that feels as if a jagged knife blade is being scraped along the spine. Our legs wont function, our hands are trembling and our bodies are like thin membranes stretched over barely repressed madness, holding in what would otherwise be an unrestrained outburst of endless screams. We have no flesh, no muscles now, we cannot even look at one another for fear of seeing the unimaginable. And so we press our lips together tightly it has to stop, it has to stop perhaps well get through it all.
Suddenly there are no more close explosions. The shelling goes on, but it has drawn back a little, our trench is clear. We grab hold of our hand-grenades, heave them out in front of the dugout and then leap out. The constant artillery fire has stopped, but in its place there is heavy defensive fire from behind us. It is the attack.
Nobody would believe that there could still be human beings in this churned-up wilderness; but everywhere steel helmets are appearing from the trenches, and fifty yards from us a machine-gun has already been set up and starts to bark away.
The wire entanglements[162] have been torn to bits. Even so, the wire is still holding up in places. We can see the attackers coming. Our big guns fire, machine-guns rattle, rifles crack. They are working their way across and on to us. Haie and Kropp start on the grenades. They throw them as fast as they can, and the grenades are handed to them ready primed. Haie throws them sixty yards, Kropp fifty this has been tested and it is important. The men from the other side cant do much until they are within thirty yards of us.
We recognize the distorted faces and the flattened helmets its the French. They reach what is left of our wire and already theyve clearly had losses. A whole line of them is wiped out by the machine-gun near us; but then it starts to jam, and they move in closer.
I see one of them run into a knife-rest[163], his face lifted upwards. His body slumps, and his hands stay caught, raised up as if he is praying. Then the body falls away completely and only the shot-off hands and the stumps of the arms are left hanging in the wire.
In the seconds when we turn to go back, three faces come up from the ground in front of us. Beneath one of the helmets there is a dark moustache and two eyes which are fixed on me. I raise my arm, but I cant throw a grenade towards those strange eyes, and for one crazy moment the whole battle rages round me and round those two eyes like a circus, then the head looks up, there is a hand, a movement, and my grenade flies across and into them.