by Ludwig Renn
The machine gun sentries in the next section were sitting too high. I moved them deeper and had the machine guns covered with branches without asking Schatz first. At the birch tree the tossed bread crumbs had disappeared.
We lay down to sleep. Inside I felt a yearning, but also a feeling of peace. After the French have attacked, then we will be relieved.
IX
I had not slept for an hour when I was awakened: “The Herr Major and the Herr Leutnant are outside.”
The major only wanted to have a look at the new position and arranged that listening posts would be pushed forward during the night. They didn’t stay long.
The lice were making me itch again. I deloused and lay down. Israel woke me up about ten o’clock: “Someone appears to be wounded down in the ravine.”
I went to the right exit and could hear someone moaning. But what should I do? It wasn’t possible to go down there in daylight.
On White Mountain and at the large trench behind us shell explosions were again rising up like trees.
I went to the next sentry forward and told him he should keep a sharp lookout on the left slope of White Mountain and report immediately if he saw anything.
“Can’t I get a field-glass?” he asked.
“I will request one.”
I went to the steep slope on the left.
Sch—wham! It went close over me into the ground. Here the forest was still pretty well preserved.
To the right was a latrine with a steeply angled roof. I went in and sat down. I had no paper except writing paper and looked around to see if there was anything usable lying around. Then I saw a naked foot sticking out of a trash pile. It appeared yellow.
Sch—wham! Sch—Whop!
I walked on. The forest became thinner. Here to the right there were holes in the slope with covers, packs, and gas masks. To the left next to a tall pile of trash I saw a head with a steel helmet. The sentry looked astounded at me.
“Where is the Herr Leutnant?”
“Here!”
I sprang next to him in a narrow entrance. There was a stairway.
Wham!
Below in the darkness someone whispered: “Be quiet, Herr Leutnant is sleeping!”
Gradually I got used to the twilight.
“Tell the Herr Leutnant that we would like to have a field-glass, and that someone down in the ravine appears to be wounded.”
Outside there was continuous crashing. I sat down to wait for a lessening of the fire. However, I couldn’t relax. I had not told anyone where I was going. I ran out past the sentry in the entrance and along the slope. Here it was more peaceful. I went slowly on. At one place there were a couple of wires stretched. I climbed carefully through and then saw a hand lying on the ground. It appeared black and out of leather stretched out on the ground. Small, very black bugs were moving around on it. I bent down: was it possible I could recognize the hand?
No. It was strange to me.
Outside my bunker I met one of the squad leaders from Schatz. He appeared to be waiting for me.
“Can you not explain the situation here to us? Schatz doesn’t tell us anything. And who then are we subordinate to here?
“When it comes down to it, me!”
“Du, discuss everything with us! Schatz doesn’t know anything about machine guns. He just came from the staging area a short time ago and our company commander doesn’t appear to know what kind of a person he is.”
“I’ll gladly instruct you about everything. However, you will have to come to me. I can’t send for you because Schatz has been in grade longer than me.”
“Ach, what is time in grade! He is lazy and a coward! We want a respectable leader! So says everyone!”
I lay down again to sleep. However, shortly thereafter both squad leaders came. I got up again. If the French would just attack soon so that we would be relieved! Having this continuously is not to be endured.
In the evening twilight our cannons began to bark. I went forward with the listening post to the meadow. The moon was shining. The shell holes had deep shadows. In one of the holes someone was lying with a steel helmet, rifle shoved forward.
“Has a listening post already been pushed forward?” I whispered.
“No.”
We went up close. The man was dead.
A little farther two men were sitting in a shell hole leaning against the side, also dead.
I placed the listening posts in shell holes and went to the ravine.
Brand was standing beside his hole, his whole body trembling lightly.
“What is wrong with you then?”
“I don’t know. It has been like this for a couple of days now.”
“Is anyone wounded here?”
“In the next hole there were two. They are already in the rear.”
I came to Weickert. He sat in his hole above and looked at me with horrified eyes.
“Will we not be relieved soon? I have sat here the entire day and couldn’t sleep.”
“Would you like to have something to read during the day?”
“No, I have the psalms. I can’t read anything else.”
I couldn’t say anything. How he had changed! His eyeballs stood out white in his face.
He climbed out of the hole and picked two men. We went carefully forward in the ravine. It rose somewhat and curved slightly to the right. To the right lay an unbelievably black forest. I placed the sentries in two holes close together and went with Israel and Weickert farther ahead in order to see what was before us. A number of bodies lay on the ground.
The ravine became even gloomier.
Here lay even more bodies.
To the left stood three low, wooden huts. I sent Israel inside and kept watch toward the front and the dark forest, which stood only a few paces away from us. It stank all around.
“There is nothing but bodies in there,” whispered Israel.
“Have you the courage to go farther with me?”
“Yes,” whispered Israel.
We went very slowly with our rifles ready. A light shone ahead. To the right there was a knoll. It was uncanny to me. I turned and looked at Weickert. He only had a flare pistol.
“Go back!” I whispered.
The two of us continued carefully in the left edge of the forest toward the light. Ahead of us in the moonlight appeared a meadow with white shell holes.
“There!” whispered Israel and pointed carefully. I saw two white strips, maybe four hundred meters ahead of us, which curved to the right toward us. That must have been the French trenches.
“If they are at such an angle to us,” I said, “Then up here on the left there won’t be any French.” We will curve to the left going back.”
We climbed to the left through the forest. It was a thick jumble of limbs. Branches snapped. It couldn’t be avoided.
We came to wire.
“Halt, who’s there?” came a cry from above.
“Patrol Renn!” I called. Everything felt weird to me. I didn’t know the voice. However, I went on very slowly.
“Who is that?” came another cry from above.
“Renn!” I called, “from the third company!”
“I hope they don’t throw hand grenades down on us!” whispered Israel.
Who is so far forward here? I thought. It must be a German. I pushed the branches out of the way. There was a steep hill of trash. Someone stood on top with a hand grenade in his hand.
“Let them keep coming!” whispered another voice.
“Herr Feldwebel Trepte!” I said loudly. A second person came to the top.
“Uh, Renn? Come on up!”
On top I met about twelve men. Trepte gave me his hand. “That was almost an accident! Are you located down there?”
“No, we are in this direction.—But how did the Herr Feldwebel get here?”
“Every night now, we wait in these bunkers as a trap for French patrols. There are signs that they sometimes come here.”
I looked
around. Again it was another previous battery position. The guns were still there, long, high cannons.
We turned and went back and came out of the high forest on to a sloping meadow. The moon was now very low and made even blacker shadows in the large shell holes in the ground. Here lay another dead man, who stank. But the area appeared noticeably unfamiliar to me. Our listening posts must be located here. We went slowly and looked in every shell hole.
“There is one of our sentries,” I whispered.
We went to the shell hole in which he lay.
“Platoon Trepte is lying ahead of us in the woods,” I said to the sentry.
He didn’t answer. I bent down. He stank.
We found the listening posts somewhat farther to the right.
I went in the bunker and made a sketch with the results of our reconnaissance. The ravine on the right in which Weickert lay I named the corpse ravine and the huts farther forward, the corpse huts. It came to me that Weickert’s people would see it as an omen if they were lying in the corpse ravine. I struck out the word and named it after our finch, the finch ravine.
Weickert came in.
“Something happened to me. As I was coming back with only the flare pistol and came to the corpses I suddenly noticed that one of them got up. I stood still. He crept carefully over toward the forest and disappeared toward the French.”
“Was he armed?”
“He didn’t appear to be.”
“Why didn’t you burn a flare into him?”
“I thought about it. But I thought he wouldn’t be alone.”
X
At the break of day it began to rain softly.
We tossed bread crumbs to the finch. A black bird had also turned up. I was sad. My poor people in the holes without a roof over them! Added to that, it was cold.
The day was peaceful. Only on White Mountain were there explosions; it looked daily more bare. The little bit of green on the slopes disappeared too.
I was able to sleep a couple of hours undisturbed.
On the following day it rained again in the twilight. Then the sun came, but also French artillery fliers. There was heavy fire in the battery area where we had been located earlier, also in the terrain behind us and on the large, white trench all the way to White Mountain.
A runner came.
“The Herr Leutnant wants to know what the situation is here. In the left part of the regimental sector they are under heavy fire. Two officers of the tenth company have been wounded.”
“It is quiet here.”
The lice were plaguing me. I wanted to go on watch and took Simplicius Simplicissimus up forward with me. However, I only read words and understood nothing. I thought of the people down in the ravine. There were only two to a hole now and they had to constantly take turns being on watch and while meals were being procured there was only one there. And they did not complain even once.
The book distressed me. I closed it and lay down on the cot. I didn’t want to sleep.
——————————
“They are attacking by platoon Langenohl! However, they have been thrown back. The Herr Leutnant is coming here with platoon Trepte.”
I sprang up.
“Everything ready and occupy the positions!”
I grabbed my rifle and gas mask and dashed outside.
White Mountain was a cloud of dust.
“Give the alarm and occupy the positions!” I yelled into the bunkers.
I ran to the machine guns.
Red tracer bullets were rising from the forest on the left. There was nothing to be seen in front.
Our artillery barked and growled from behind the heights.
We went into the bunkers.
Everyone was talking in confusion.
Another runner came: “The Herr Leutnant says that the French have penetrated the trenches on the left, but the counterattack has thrown them out everywhere. There is no news from the neighbor division. Immediately after dark communication is to be established with them!”
In the evening I got underway with Israel. There was a light fog, but along with that it was also bright. I wanted to investigate the trench, which led from our neighbor division toward the front, close to our sentries. We went through the ravine and across to where it was through a strip of birches.
“Be careful from here on!” I whispered to Israel. “It wouldn’t surprise me if, during the attack, the French didn’t push as far forward in the trench as possible!”
We crept along step by step, our eyes forward.
The trench was only twenty paces from the strip of birches. Nothing moved.
We came to the trench and looked inside.
Rifles were leaning against the wall, German rifles, numbering about twenty. Is there an outpost nearby? For what reasons have they stacked their rifles here?
I pulled Israel somewhat to the side.
“This is suspicious.—I can’t say just why.—You go along in the birches. I will go in the trench.”
“I’ll go with you,” he whispered.
I became uncertain.
“No,” I said. “You are of no use to me here. Go over there!”
He obeyed.
I crept along the trench in constant fear. Would my senses warn me? No, that was nonsense.
It was too foggy to see the white trench to the rear. That must be in our hands; otherwise Lamm would have learned about it and informed me.
The strip of birches came to an end. Israel came over to me. He appeared to be uneasy also.
We neared the place where the outpost should be. There was nobody there. There were only a pack and some hand grenades lying in the trench.
We came to the place where the outpost had been before. There was nothing there.
We came to the white trench.
“First we are going to the next sentry from our regiment.”
The sentry there said the neighbor division was lying the same as before in the trench. Not fifty meters from there we would meet the next platoon leader.
We went there in the trench.
A Vizefeldwebel met us with two men.
“As linkup patrol!” I reported. “Does the Herr Feldwebel know where the outpost is now that was lying forward on the left?”
He looked at me suspiciously. “From where have you come?”
“From where they were earlier.”
“And are they not there anymore?” he asked, aghast.
“No, we only found rifles.”
“Do you have time to show that to me?”
“Yes, Herr Feldwebel.”
He went hastily ahead of us. We came to the place where the pack and the hand grenades were lying. He looked around silently.
“Where are the rifles?”
“Further forward, Herr Feldwebel.”
He went forward gloomily. At the rifles he stood still, then turned suddenly to his people: “Every one of you take as many rifles as you can carry! I will follow you!”
He watched silently as they moved out with the rifles. “Where are you going now?” he asked.
“Over there.” I pointed to the left front.
“What do you want over there?”
“That’s where my platoon is.”
“Ah, so you are platoon leader?—Then one can speak plainly.—Is this man trustworthy?” He looked at Israel suspiciously.
“Absolutely trustworthy, Herr Feldwebel.” I didn’t understand the meaning of the question.
He climbed out of the trench and went a ways with us.
“You must forgive me my mistrust. I am an East Prussian. Most all of my people are Alsatians. Do you know the meaning of these rifles? The dogs have gone over!” He spat. “One who isn’t acquainted with the situation cannot understand when one cannot even trust his own people! The two I sent away with the rifles are also part of that gang!—I would like to go over myself!—However, not to the French, but to you.—When I see my company commander now I have to tell him my platoon is gone!—W
here then? Ah, crap!” He spat again, but didn’t have anything more to spit. “God support Germany!” He turned around and went back with long strides.
Our artillery had been actively firing since twilight. The wind was coming from the front. This time we entered the ravine from the rear. There was a smell that was growing stronger.
“Can that be our own gas?” asked Israel.
We met Weickert and his people with donned gas masks, looking like apes.
Up above in the battery there was only a little odor.
Lamm had already been waiting for me. My report of the deserters seemed to unsettle him.
“I also have an unpleasant message for you. Toward morning replacements should arrive here.”
“Why is that so unpleasant?”
“Well, in the first place it is pretty dangerous to try to move replacements into a position consisting of shell holes. The people arrive and in the darkness only hear a couple of voices and then are stuffed into a hole. And I don’t—see or hear them. There is absolutely no relationship there.—And secondly: if we are, in the foreseeable future, relieved, they would wait with the rear echelon until we are in the rear. Do you understand now?”
I told no one about it, not even the group leaders.
Our artillery had stopped firing; even so there remained a strong smell of gas.
Platoon Trepte sent a man over: a half hour earlier a French patrol had thrown hand grenades into the battery ahead of us.
The mess detail came back without Wolf. He had been slightly wounded on the way.
“Who will now be the second runner?” asked Israel.
“I will think it over.”
I thought I might want to take one of the replacements. It became gradually light.
A runner came: “The Herr Leutnant would like for you to come to him.”
On the way he said to me: “The replacements are here. And what a gang! A third of them appear to have slipped off on the way. And the remaining ones!”