Against Indians

On the 6th May 1917 we were once more on the march to the now familiar Brancourt, and on the following day we went through Montbréhain, Ramicourt, and Joncourt into the Siegfried line, which we had left just a month before.

The first evening was stormy. Heavy rain pattered down without ceasing on to the flooded ground. Soon, however, a succession of bright, warm days reconciled us to our new station. I enjoyed the wonderful country undisturbed by the white puffs of shrapnel and the leaping cones of the shell-bursts; indeed, I scarcely noticed them. In those years of increased activity the signs of an offensive were as much a part of the spring as primroses and opening buds.

Our lines formed a crescent in front of the St. Quentin Canal. Behind us was the famous Siegfried line. I never could tell why we had to occupy the narrow, unfinished trenches in the chalk, when behind us lay this magnificent line.

The front line wound through an idyllic meadowland shadowed by small groups of trees and beautified now by the tender colours of spring. We could move about with impunity behind and in front of the trench, for our front was protected by a belt of outposts pushed forward to a depth of a kilometre. These posts were a thorn in the enemy’s side, and not a night went by for many weeks that he did not try to dislodge them either by cunning or force.

Our first spell in the line was, however, passed in welcome quiet. The weather was so fine that the men slept out on the grass. On the 14th May we were relieved by the 8th Company and, leaving the burning St. Quentin on our right, proceeded to our rest-place, Montbréhain, a large village that so far had suffered very little from the war and therefore had very comfortable quarters to offer. On the 20th, as company in reserve, we occupied the Siegfried line. The weather was gorgeous, and day after day we sat in the numerous arbours built in the side of the trench, or bathed in the canal, or boated on it.

The objection to occupying a trench otherwise so ideal lies in the frequent visits from superior officers, a pleasure very little esteemed in the line. In any case my left wing had no cause to complain of being too safe. It extended nearly to the village of Bellenglise, already seriously nibbled at, and on the very first day one of my men got a shrapnel-bullet wound in the right buttock. When I hastened to the scene of the disaster, he was seated in great content on his left side awaiting the stretcher-bearers, and filling in the time with an enormous slice of bread and jam.

On the 25th May we relieved the 12th Company in Riqueval farm. This farm, formerly a large estate, was occupied in turns by each of the four companies in the line. There were three machine-gun positions at different points in our rear, and these had to be manned by sections in rotation. These strong points distributed behind the line, and covering each other like squares on a chessboard, were the first experiment in an elastic scheme of defence.

The rest of the men were sent forward on working parties every night.

The farm lay 1,500 metres at most behind the front line. Nevertheless the buildings, surrounded by a well-timbered park, were still entirely intact. As there were deep dugouts under construction, there were plenty of men there. The red may-tree avenues in the park and the charm of the surroundings gave our life there something of the cheerful enjoyment which the Frenchman means by his “vie de champagne,” in spite of the nearness to the front. A pair of swallows had nested in my bedroom. Before it was light they started on the noisy business of feeding their brood.

In the evenings I took my stick from the corner and wandered along the narrow paths that went up and down through the hilly country. The neglected fields were scented with wildflowers. Here and there single trees stood by the wayside. In peace time the labourers must often have rested beneath them. They had an air of enchantment, standing alone in the solitude, covered with blossom white or pink or red. It seemed that the war had thrown a heroic and melancholy light over the landscape, and without disturbing its loveliness added a ray to its brightness and a strength to its spell.

It is easier to go into the battle in the midst of such beauties of nature than when surrounded by a dead and cold winter landscape. Somehow, it comes to one quite simply that one’s existence is part of an eternal circuit, and that the death of a single individual is no such great matter.

On the 30th May this idyll came to an end as far as I was concerned, for the command of the 4th Company was taken over again by Lieutenant Vogeley, who had come out of hospital. I rejoined my old 2nd Company, now under the command of a cavalry lieutenant, in the line.

Our front, extending from the Roman road to the so-called Artillery trench, was held by two platoons. The third, with company headquarters, was about 200 metres to the rear behind a small hill. There was a little wooden hut there, too, that I used to occupy with Lieutenant Kius, peacefully relying upon the poor shooting of the English artillery.

One side of it was built into the slope of a little hill facing the enemy; the three others trustingly offered themselves as a mark. Every day, when the morning’s greetings came hurtling across, the following dialogue might be heard between the occupants of the upper and lower bunks:

“That you, Ernst?”

“Hm.”

“They’re shooting, aren’t they?”

“Well, let’s lie where we are a little longer. I think those were the last ones.”

After a quarter of an hour:

“That you, Oskar?”

“Yes?”

“They are not going to stop today. I think that was a shrapnel bullet that came through the wall just now. We’d better get up. That artillery observer fellow cleared out long ago.”

We had always optimistically taken off our boots. By the time we were ready, the shooting had generally left off, and we could seat ourselves happily at the absurdly small table and drink coffee that the heat had turned sour, and light our morning cigars. In the afternoon, in scorn of the English artillery, we used to have sunbaths on a groundsheet in front of the door.

Our cabin was extremely entertaining in other respects too. When one lay in sweet idleness on the wire mattress, gigantic earthworms hung pendulum-wise from the earth wall and shot into their holes with inconceivable rapidity at the least touch. A peevish mole sniffed about from his tunnel and added much to the enlivenment of our prolonged siesta.

On the 12th of June I had to occupy the outpost on the company front with twenty men. It was late when we left the trench and went in the warm evening air by the footpath winding over the undulating ground. Dusk was so far advanced that the red poppies in the untilled fields blended with the vivid green grass to an extraordinarily rich tone.

We strolled silently along over the carpet of flowers. Each man was busy with his own thoughts; our rifles hung from our shoulders; and in twenty minutes we arrived at our destination. In whispers the post was taken over. Silently guards were mounted. Then the men we relieved disappeared into the darkness.

The outpost rested upon a short, steep hill. In the rear a wild and tangled wood melted into the night. It was separated from our steep bank by about a hundred metres of meadow ground. In front and to our right rose two hills over which ran the English lines. There was a ruin on one with the promising name “Ascension farm.” A sunken road ran between these hills to the enemy.

And now, just as my posts had gone out, appeared Sergeant-major Hackmann with a few men of the 7th Company, just about to go on patrol. I attached myself to them as camp-follower, though I had no business to leave my post.

Using a method of advance invented by myself, we crossed two entanglements that barred our way and got over the crest of the hill without, to our surprise, having run into a single outpost. We could now hear English working parties to right and to left of us. It was clear to me after the event that the enemy had withdrawn his own posts so as not to involve them in the fire which, as I shall shortly explain, he was about to open on ours.

My method of advance, mentioned just now, consisted in this, that over ground in which we might at any moment run up against the enemy each member of the patrol crept forward in turn. In this way, only one man at a time exposed himself to the risk of being shot from an ambush, while the rest, in a body behind, lay in readiness to attack. Naturally I took care to take my turn as leader, although my mere presence with the patrol was bad enough in itself. An officer in the front line has often to put himself technically in the wrong from considerations of a personal kind.

We stalked several working parties that, unfortunately, were separated from us by dense entanglements. The somewhat eccentric sergeant-major suggested giving himself up as a deserter and holding the enemy in parley until we had surrounded the first post. This plan was turned down after a brief discussion, and we crept back, disappointed, to the outpost.

There I sat down on the edge of the steep bank on my cloak, and, lighting a pipe as cautiously as possible, I gave rein to my thoughts. In the midst of the most beautiful castle in the air, I was suddenly alarmed by a peculiar rustling in the wood and the meadow. In the face of the enemy the senses are always on the lookout; and it is remarkable that, at such moments, quite ordinary sounds can give one the instant conviction, “Something is up!”

At the same instant the nearest post came up to me: “Sir, there are seventy Englishmen advancing to the edge of the wood.”

I was rather surprised by the numerical precision, but for the sake of prudence I hid myself, with the four men nearest me, on the edge of the bank in the long grass, in order to observe how matters developed. After a few seconds I saw a body of men gliding over the meadow. While the men covered them with their rifles I called out softly, “Who goes there?” It was Teilengerdes, a N.C.O., an old veteran of the 2nd Company, who was trying to collect his agitated section.

I at once got them all in hand and formed them in line, with one flank on the wood and the other on the bank. In a moment, bayonets were fixed. When I was giving them directions and told a man who hung back to dress up with the rest, “I am a stretcher-bearer,” was the answer. The fellow had his drill well in his head. Comforted by this triumph of Prussian discipline, I gave the word to advance.

While we were crossing the strip of meadow, a hail of shrapnel and a wild clatter of machine-gun fire began from the English side. We broke, against our wills, into a double, so as to reach the cover of the shoulder of the hill that lay to our front.

Suddenly a dark shadow rose in front of me. I seized a bomb and threw it. To my horror I saw in the flash of the explosions that it was the N.C.O. Teilengerdes, who had got in front unobserved and had just been tripped up by a wire. Fortunately he was not hurt. At the same time we heard the sharper explosion of English bombs not far off, and the shrapnel fire increased to an unpleasant intensity.

My firing-line broke and disappeared in the direction of the steep bank, which was under heavy fire. I with Teilengerdes and three more of the right sort stood my ground. Suddenly one of them rushed up to me: “The English!”

Like a vision engraved for one second on my eyes I saw a double row of kneeling figures, at that moment, getting up and advancing over the meadow, which was lit up only by an occasional flash. I could clearly distinguish the figure of an officer on the right flank. Friend and foe were as though paralysed by this abrupt and unexpected encounter. Then we did the one thing left us to do⁠—turned and made off before the enemy recovered sufficiently to fire a shot. We jumped up and ran back to the bank. Though I tripped and fell over a treacherous wire stretched through the tall grass, I got back without further misadventure. The men were there, but they were in a state of great agitation, and it cost me all my energy to get them into line, even elbow to elbow.

I have always observed that the ordinary man whose sole preoccupation is his own danger is surprised by what seems to him an undivided attention to the matter in hand on the part of the officer in command, who among a thousand and one unnerving incidents of battle yet keeps his eye fixed upon the execution of his duty. This surprise makes an officer excel himself and spurs him on to always greater achievements. In this way officers and men call out energies in each other which would otherwise lie dormant. Indeed the moral factor is everything.

The enemy fire ceased of a sudden, and at the same time crackling and rustling sounds were heard in the undergrowth of the wood.

“Halt! Who goes there? Password.”

We kept on calling out for a good five minutes, and even shouted the old battle-cry of the 1st Battalion, “Luttje Lage,” an expression signifying schnapps and beer, known to every Hanoverian. Only a strange and incomprehensible shout came in reply. At last I took the responsibility on myself and gave the order to fire, though some of the men asserted that they had heard German words. The fire of twenty rifles swept the wood; bolts rattled; and soon the cry we had heard changed to moans. This gave me a passing twinge of uncertainty. However, there were yellow flashes here and there in our direction, though they soon died away. One of the men was hit in the shoulder, and the stretcher-bearers bound him up.

“Cease fire!”

Slowly the command took effect and the fring ceased. The men had quite recovered their nerve. Once more there were calls for the password, and on my side the persuasive summons: “Come here; you are prisoners. Hands up!”

Thereupon there were confused cries from the other side, which were interpreted by the men as “Rache! Rache!” (“Revenge! Revenge!”). A single figure detached itself from the border of the wood and came towards us. One of the men was idiot enough to shout “Password” at him, at which he stopped and turned round.

“Shoot him dead!”

There were a dozen shots, and he sank in a heap beneath the tall grass.

This little episode gave us a feeling of satisfaction. Once more confused cries rang out from the edge of the wood. It seemed that the attacking party were encouraging each other to advance on their mysterious enemy.

In the utmost excitement we kept our eyes fixed on the dark strip of ground. It was beginning to dawn, and a light mist rose from the meadowland.

Then a row of shadows rose out of the darkness. Five, ten, fifteen, a whole lot of them. Trembling fingers released the safety catches. They were fifty metres from us, thirty, fifteen⁠ ⁠… “Fire!” For a minute the rifles rattled out. Sparks showered up whenever the storm of bullets encountered weapons or steel helmets.

Suddenly there was a shout: “Look out on the left!” Coming quickly on, a party of the enemy was attacking us on the left flank. At the head of it was a giant with outstretched revolver, swinging a white bludgeon.

“Left section! Left front!”

The men whipped round and received the new arrivals standing. Some of them, and among them their leader, fell at the first hurried shots. The rest vanished as swiftly as they had come. Now was the moment to attack in turn. With fixed bayonets and a rousing “Hurrah!” we stormed the wood. We threw a volley of bombs into the tangled undergrowth, and in a moment were once more in undisturbed possession of our outpost, without having encountered the pliant enemy.

We assembled in a cornfield and looked at each other. Our faces had an after-the-night-before look, and a lark that rose into the sky and began its trills was an added exasperation. We were in much the same mood as when, after a night of play, the cards are flung on to the table and the windows thrown open to let the cool morning air blow away the hanging cloud of cigar smoke.

While we handed round the water-bottles and lit cigars we heard the enemy retreating along the sunken road and the cries of the wounded they carried with them.

I decided to survey the field of battle. Strange sounds and cries of pain came from the meadow where we had routed the enemy with our rifle-fire. We found a number of dead in the long grass and three wounded who begged for mercy. They were convinced we would massacre them.

When I asked, “Quelle nation?” one of them answered, “Pauvre Rajput!”

They were Indians, who had come far over the sea to run their heads against the Hanover Fusiliers in this Godforsaken corner of the earth.

Their fine bodies were in evil plight. At that short range infantry fire has an almost explosive effect. Many had been hit for the second time when they had fallen, so that the track of the bullet passed along the whole length of their bodies. Not one had been hit less than twice. We took the wounded up and carried them to our trench. They cried out as if they were being stuck with spears, till the men had to stop their mouths and threaten them with their fists; and at this they seemed to be comforted in their anguish. One of them died while he was being carried in. He was taken on all the same, as there was a prize on the head of every prisoner, dead or alive. The two others strove to win our indulgence by shouting out all the time, “Anglais pas bon!” Why these people spoke French I have never quite made out.

The company had heard the sounds of fighting and had had a heavy barrage put down on them. They welcomed us back to the trench in jubilation and with astonishment at our booty. I retired to our cabin with Kius and half a dozen more whom he quickly enrolled, and was entertained in honour of the occasion with poached eggs.

Our achievement received the notice it deserved, and was mentioned in divisional orders with praise. With twenty men we had beaten back a detachment many times our number, though they had taken us in the rear and though our orders were to withdraw if attacked in force. Such successes can, of course, only be won by troops whose discipline and morale are of the first order. Of myself I could say with satisfaction that my command of the situation and my personal influence with my men had prepared a severe disappointment and an early grave for the officer who led the attack. We two had matched our wits in the same way as is customary in field exercises in training⁠—except that we had not used dummy cartridges.

If these lines are read by anyone belonging to the 1st Hariana Lancers I wish to express to him in this place my respect for a body of men who could claim as their commander such a one as he whom I had the honour to fight.

What does Nietzsche say of fighting men? “You must have as enemies only those whom you hate, but not those whom you despise. You must be proud of your enemy, and then the enemy’s success is your success also.”

The next evening I had orders again to occupy the outpost. It was impossible to occupy it by day, as it was in full view of the enemy. Kius and I with fifty men took each a side of the wood and met at the steep bank. There was nothing to be seen or heard of the enemy except that there was a shout and a Verey light and a shot from the sunken road which Sergeant-major Hackmann and I had reconnoitred. We marked this unwary individual down for our next expedition.

At the spot where we had beaten off the flank attack the night before were lying three dead. Two of them were Indians, and one a white officer with two gold stars on his shoulder-straps: a lieutenant, therefore. He had been shot in the eye. The bullet went out through the opposite temple and had smashed the rim of his steel helmet⁠—which is now among my collection of sinister trophies. His right hand still grasped the club, stained with his own blood; his left a large Colt six-shooter. There were only two live cartridges left in the magazine.

The men plundered the fallen. I have always hated the sight; all the same, I did not interfere. What they took was otherwise doomed to waste away, and aesthetic or moral considerations seemed to me to be out of place in this dark meadow-ground over which all the callous relentlessness of war still brooded.

During the following days several more dead bodies were found in the undergrowth of the wood; this showed how heavy the enemy’s losses had been, and made the outpost a rather unpleasant place to be in. As I was working my way alone through a thicket I heard a peculiar hissing and murmuring sound. I went nearer and came upon two corpses in which the heat had awakened a ghastly life.

On the 18th June the outpost was again attacked. This time the affair did not go off so well. The men broke and could not be rallied again. One, a N.C.O., Erdelt, jumped straight off the bank in the confusion. He rolled down and landed at the bottom among a party of Indians in ambush. He threw bombs, but was soon caught by the throat by an Indian officer and scourged in the face with a wire whip. His watch was taken from him and he was pushed and thumped and marched off by his captors. However, he managed to escape when the Indians threw themselves down on account of our machine-gun fire. After long wanderings behind the enemy’s front he regained our lines, with thick weals across his face.

On the evening of the 18th June I went on patrol with little Schultz, ten men, and a light machine-gun. We set out from the outpost, now becoming by degrees somewhat oppressive, with the aim of paying the post that had lately made itself so obvious in the sunken road the honour of a visit. Schultz went with his party to the right of the sunken road, I to the left, with the understanding that if either party were fired on the other should run to its help. We worked our way forward on hands and knees through grass and thickets of broom, pausing now and then to listen.

Suddenly came the sharp rattle of a rifle-bolt. We sank into the ground. Every old hand knows the series of feelings that occupied the next seconds. For the moment one has lost the initiative and must wait and see what the enemy does next.

A shot broke the oppressive stillness. I lay behind a broom-bush and waited. On my right someone threw bombs into the sunken road.

At once a whole line of fire flashed out in front of us. The sickening sharpness of the report showed that the fire came from only a few yards ahead of us, and, seeing that we had stumbled into too hot a corner, I gave the word to run for it. We all sprang up and sprinted for all we were worth, while rifle-fire was opened on us from our left as well. I gave up all hope of a safe return when I heard this unholy clatter. Unconsciously, I was in constant expectation of being hit. Death was out hunting.

Somewhere near us a detachment advanced to the attack with a shrill hurrah. Little Schultz confessed to me afterwards that he imagined a lean Indian behind him wielding a knife and already clutching him tight by the neck.

I tumbled once and brought down the N.C.O. Teilengerdes over on top of me. I lost my steel helmet, revolver, and bombs. Anything to get on! At last we reached the protecting bank and tore down it. Lieutenant Schultz reached it at the same time with his men. He announced quite out of breath that anyway he had paid out the cheeky post with bombs. Just after two men came in carrying Fusilier F⁠⸺, who was wounded in both legs. All the rest were unwounded.

The worst misfortune was that the man who had carried the machine-gun, a recruit, had fallen over the wounded man and left the thing behind. While we were holding a brief council of war and planning a second expedition, the artillery began firing. I was reminded very precisely of the night of the 12th, for this time too there was a hopeless stampede. I found myself alone on the bank with the wounded man, who, dragging himself forward by both his hands, implored me piteously not to leave him alone. “Don’t leave me, sir!”

I had to, little as I liked it, in order to take my part in putting the outpost in fighting trim. I got the men together in a row of shallow firing positions on the edge of the wood; but I confess I was thankful when the day dawned without further incident.

On such occasions I was always surprised and touched by the trusting reliance of the men on the ability of the officer to cope with the situation. “Where shall we go, sir?” “Help, sir, I’m wounded!” “Where’s the officer?”

To be in command at such moments and to have a clear head is its own supreme reward, just as cowardice is its own punishment. I have always pitied the coward, in whom battle arouses a series of hellish tortures, while the spirit of the brave man merely rises the higher to meet a chain of exciting experiences.

The next night found us at the same spot. Our object was to recover our machine-gun. However, a succession of suspicious noises as we crept on warned us that once more there must be a strong detachment on the watch for us.

It was decided, therefore, in accordance with a point of honour which like many others in the war made us inwardly curse, to recover the lost weapon by force. At twelve midnight, after three minutes’ artillery preparation, we were to attack the enemy posts and look for the gun.

I put the best face I could on the sorry business, and in the afternoon I shot some ranging shots with some of the batteries.

At eleven at night I was once more with Schultz, my companion in misfortune, on the uncanny bit of ground where I had already passed so many exciting moments. The smell of corruption was scarcely endurable in the sultry air. We sprinkled the bodies with quicklime that we had brought with us in sacks. The covering of white shone out like grave-clothes in the darkness.

The enterprise opened with our own machine-gun fire whistling between our legs and pattering against the bank. On this account Schultz and I had a violent altercation, for he himself had given the machine-gunners their range. We were reconciled, however, when Schultz discovered me behind a bush in close confabulation with a bottle of Burgundy that I had brought with me to invigorate me for the precarious adventure and to calm my nerves, which had been on the stretch for nine days past.

The first shell came along to the minute and landed fifty metres behind us. Before we could express our surprise at this extraordinary shooting, a second was planted close behind us on the bank and showered us with earth. It was not for me even to emit a curse, for I had myself given the range for the guns.

After this cheerful opening we advanced more as a matter of honour than with any great hopes of success. Luckily, the enemy posts had apparently retired. Otherwise we might have had a very unpleasant reception. Unfortunately, we did not find the machine-gun, nor did we search for it very long.

On the way back Schultz and I once more told each other what we really thought⁠—I about the way he had directed his machine-gun fire, and he about the shooting of the guns. I had tested the range so accurately that the affair seemed incomprehensible. Later I learned that guns always shoot short at night, and that I ought to have added a few hundred metres when I gave the range. Then we sat down to the most important part of the business⁠—the report. We did so well that everyone was delighted.

These skirmishings came to an end the next day, for we were relieved by another division.

We went back to Montbréhain for a time, and marched from there to Cambrai, where we spent nearly the whole of July.

The outpost was finally lost on the night following our relief.