Storm of Steel

  I was relieved, therefore, to see little yellow tongues of flame flash back, although they soon stopped. One man was hit in the shoulder, and the stretcher-bearer tended to him.

  ‘Hold your fire!’

  Slowly the order took effect, and the shooting stopped. The tension in any case had been broken by our taking some action.

  Further calls for the password. I scraped together what little English I had, and shouted a few (I hoped, persuasive) words of encouragement: ‘Come here, you are prisoners, hands up!’

  Thereupon, more confused shouting, which sounded to us like the German word ‘Rache, Rache!’ [‘Revenge, revenge!’]. A single man emerged from the edge of the wood and came towards us. One of the men made the mistake of shouting ‘Password!’ to him, causing him to stop irresolutely and turn back. Obviously a scout.

  ‘Shoot him down!’

  A volley of a dozen shots; the figure subsided into the tall grass.

  The little episode filled us with satisfaction. From the edge of the wood, once more there was the strange jabbering; it sounded as though the attackers were encouraging one another to advance against the mysterious defenders.

  We stared intently at the dark line of wood. It began to get light, and a thin morning fog rose off the meadow.

  Then we saw something that was a rarity in this war of long-range weapons. Out of the dark brush, a line of figures emerged and stepped on to the open meadow. Five, ten, fifteen, a whole line. Trembling fingers took off safety-catches. A distance of fifty yards, thirty, fifteen … Fire! The rifles barked for several minutes. Sparks flew as spurts of lead struck weapons and steel helmets.

  Suddenly a shout: ‘Watch out, left!’ A mob of attackers was running towards us from the left, headed by an enormous figure with an outstretched revolver, and swinging a white club.

  ‘Left section! Left front!’

  The men spun round, and welcomed the new arrivals in a standing posture. A few of the enemy, among them their leader, collapsed under the hurriedly fired-off shots, the others vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

  Now was our moment to charge. With fixed bayonets and loud hurrahs, we surged into the little wood. Hand-grenades flew into the tangled undergrowth, and in no time at all we were back in control of our outpost, although admittedly without having come to grips with our elusive foe.

  We assembled in an adjacent cornfield and gazed at each other’s pale and exhausted faces. The sun had risen radiantly. A lark was ascending, getting on our wicks with its trilling. It was all unreal after that feverishly intent night.

  While we handed round our canteens and lit cigarettes, we heard the enemy leaving along the path, with a few loudly lamenting wounded in tow. We even caught a glimpse of them, but not long enough to chase after and finish them off.

  I went off to survey the battlefield. From the meadow arose exotic calls and cries for help. The voices were like the noise that frogs make in the grass after a rainstorm. In the tall grass we discovered a line of dead and three wounded who threw themselves at our feet and begged us for mercy. They seemed to be convinced that we would massacre them.

  In answer to my question ‘Quelle nation?’ one replied: ‘Pauvre Rajput!’

  So these were Indians we had confronted, who had travelled thousands of miles across the sea, only to give themselves a bloody nose on this god-forsaken piece of earth against the Hanoverian Rifles.

  They were delicate, and in a bad way. At such short range, an infantry bullet has an explosive effect. Some of them had been hit a second time as they lay there, and in such a way that the bullets had passed longitudinally, down the length of their bodies. All of them had been hit twice, and a few more than that. We picked them up, and dragged them towards our lines. Since they were screaming like banshees, my men tried to hold their mouths shut and brandished their fists at them, which terrified them still more. One died on the way, but he was still taken along, because there was a reward for every prisoner taken, whether alive or dead. The other two tried to ingratiate themselves with us by calling out repeatedly: ‘Anglais pas bon!’ Why these people spoke French I couldn’t quite understand. The whole scene – the mixture of the prisoners’ laments and our jubilation – had something primordial about it. This wasn’t war; it was ancient history.

  Returned to the line, we were received in triumph by the company, who had heard the sounds of fighting, and had been pegged back by a heavy artillery barrage, and our captives were much gawped at. Here I was able to set the minds of our captives at rest – they seemed to have been told the direst things about us. They thawed a little, and told me their names; one of them was Amar Singh. Their outfit was the First Hariana Lancers, a good regiment, I’m told. Then I retired with Kius, who took half a dozen photographs, to our hut, and had him treat me to celebratory fried eggs.

  Our little skirmish was mentioned in the divisional orders for the day. With only twenty men we had seen off a detachment several times larger, and attacking us from more than one side, and in spite of the fact that we had orders to withdraw if we were outnumbered. It was precisely an engagement like this that I’d been dreaming of during the longueurs of positional warfare.

  It turned out, by the way, that we lost a man in addition to the one who was wounded, and that in mysterious circumstances. The fellow in question was barely fit for active service any longer, because an earlier wound had left him morbidly fearful. We only noticed he was missing the next day; I assumed that in a fit of panic he ran off into one of the cornfields, and there met his end.

  The following evening, I received orders to occupy the outpost again. As the enemy might have dug himself in there by now, I took the wood in a pincer movement; I led one detachment, Kius the other. Here, for the first time, I adopted a particular mode of approaching a dangerous site, which consisted of having one man after another going around it. If the place was in fact occupied, a simple left- or rightward movement created a possibility for flanking fire. After the war, I included this manœuvre in the Infantry Engagement Manual, under the name of ‘flanking file’.

  The two detachments met up without incident at the slope – aside from the fact that Kius barely missed shooting me as he cocked his pistol.

  There was no sign of the enemy, it was only on the path between the two hills that I had reconnoitred with Sergeant-Major Hackmann that a sentry challenged us, fired a flare and some live rounds. We made a note of the noisy young man for another time.

  In the place where the night before we had beaten back the flank attack we found three bodies. They were two Indians and a white officer with two gold stars on his shoulder-straps – a first lieutenant. He had been shot in the eye. The bullet had exited through his temple and shattered the rim of his steel helmet, which I kept as a souvenir. In his right hand he still held the club – reddened with his own blood – and in his left a heavy Colt revolver, whose magazine had only two bullets left in it. He had evidently had serious intentions towards us.

  In the course of the following days, more bodies were discovered in the undergrowth – evidence of the attackers’ heavy losses, which added to the gloomy atmosphere that prevailed there. As I was making my way through a thicket once, on my own, I was dismayed by a quiet hissing and burbling sound. I stepped closer and encountered two bodies, which the heat had awakened to a ghostly type of life. The night was silent and humid; I stopped a long time before the eerie scene.

  On 18 June, the outpost was again attacked; on this occasion, things didn’t go so well for us. Panic developed; the men fled in all directions, and couldn’t be brought together again. In the confusion, one of them, Corporal Erdelt, ran straight towards the slope, tumbled down it, and found himself in the midst of a group of lurking Indians. He flung hand-grenades around, but was seized by the collar by an Indian officer, and hit in the face with a wire whip. Then his watch was taken off him. He was kicked and punched to make him march; but he successfully escaped when the Indians once lay down to avoid some machine-gun fire
. After wandering around for a long time behind the enemy lines, he came back with nothing worse than a few bloody welts across his face.

  On the evening of 19 June, I set off with little Schultz, ten men and a light machine-gun on a patrol from the now distinctly morbid-feeling place, to pay a call on the sentry on the path who had reacted so noisily to our presence there a few days ago. Schultz and his men went right, and I went left, to meet at the path, promising to come to one another’s aid if there was any trouble. We worked our way forward on our bellies through the grass and furze, stopping to listen every so often.

  Suddenly, we heard the sharp rattle of a rifle bolt. We lay completely riveted to the ground. Anyone who’s been on a patrol will be familiar with the rapid succession of disagreeable feelings that flooded us in the next few seconds. You’ve at least temporarily lost the freedom of action, and you have to wait and see what the enemy will do.

  A shot rang out through the oppressive silence. I was lying behind a clump of furze; the man on my right was dropping hand-grenades down on to the path. Then a line of bullets spurted in front of our faces. The sharp sound of the reports told us the marksmen were only a few feet away. I saw that we had fallen into a trap, and ordered retreat. We leaped up and ran back like crazy, while I saw that rifle fire had engaged my left-hand troop as well. In the middle of all this clatter, I gave up all hope of a safe return. Every moment I was expecting to be hit. Death was at our heels.

  From the left, we were attacked with shrill hurrahs. Little Schultz admitted to me later he’d had a vision of a long tall Indian behind him with a knife, reaching out to grab him by the scruff of the neck.

  Once, I fell and brought down Corporal Teilengerdes in the process. I lost steel helmet, pistol and hand-grenades. On, on! At last we reached the protective slope, and charged down it. Little Schultz and his people came round the corner at about the same time. He reported to me breathlessly that at least he’d given the cheeky sentry a stiff rebuke in the form of a few hand-grenades. A man was dragged in who had been shot in both legs. All the others were unhurt. The worst thing was that the man who’d been carrying the machine-gun, a recruit, had fallen over the wounded man, and had left the machine-gun behind.

  While we were still arguing the toss, and planning a follow-up expedition, an artillery bombardment began that reminded me of the one we’d had on the 12th, down to the hopeless confusion it started. I found myself with no weapon, alone on the slope with the wounded man, who dragged himself forward on both hands, creeping up to me, and wailed: ‘Please, Lieutenant, sir, don’t leave me!’

  I had to, though, to go and organize our defences. The wounded man was at least taken in later the same night.

  We occupied a row of shallow firing positions on the edge of the wood, feeling heartily relieved to see day break without further incident.

  The following evening found us in the same place, with the aim of getting our machine-gun back, but suspicious noises we heard as we approached suggested there was once again a welcoming committee waiting for us, and we turned back.

  We were therefore ordered to get the gun back by main force. At twelve o’clock the next night, following three minutes’ preliminary bombardment, we were to attack the enemy sentries and look for our gun. I had privately feared that its loss would make difficulties for us, but I put on a brave face and fired some ranging shots with some of the batteries myself in the afternoon.

  At eleven o’clock, therefore, my companion in misfortune, Schultz, and I found ourselves back at that eerie spot where we had already had so many adventures and scrapes. The smell of decomposition in the humid air was too much. We had brought a few sacks of quicklime with us, and now sprinkled that on the bodies. The white stains loomed like shrouds out of the blackness.

  Tonight’s other ‘undertaking’ began with our own machine-gun bullets whistling round our legs, and smacking into the slope. I had a furious argument with Schultz, who had given the machine-gunners their range. We made it up again, though, when Schultz discovered me behind a bush with a bottle of Burgundy, which I had brought along to strengthen me for the dubious venture.

  At the agreed time, the first shell went up. It landed fully fifty yards behind us. Before we could wonder at this peculiar gunnery, a second had come down right next to us on the slope, and dusted us with earth. This time, I wasn’t even allowed to curse, as the artillery had been my responsibility.

  After this somewhat discouraging overture, we went ahead, more for the sake of honour and duty than with any particular hope of success. We were lucky the sentries seemed to have quit their posts, otherwise we should have been accorded a rough welcome this time too. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to find the machine-gun; admittedly, we didn’t spend that much time looking for it either. It was probably long since safe in British hands.

  On the way back, Schultz and I gave each other a piece of our minds: I over his instructions to the machine-gunners, he over the artillery targeting. And yet I had done my work so scrupulously I couldn’t understand what had gone wrong. It wasn’t till later that I learned that guns always shoot short at night, and that I should therefore have added another hundred yards to the range. Then we discussed the most important aspect of the affair: the report. We wrote it in such a way that we were both satisfied.

  As we were relieved the next day by troops from another division, there was no more argy-bargy. We were returned for the time being to Montbréhain, and marched from there to Cambrai, where we spent almost the entire month of July.

  The outpost was finally lost the night after our departure.

  Langemarck

  Cambrai is a sleepy little town in the Artois, with a name full of historical associations. Its narrow old streets wind their way round an imposing town hall, ancient town gates, and many churches where the great Archbishop Fénelon once preached his sermons. Hefty towers rise out of a mass of pointed gables. Wide avenues lead to the well-kept town park, which is graced by a memorial to the aviator Blériot.

  The inhabitants are quiet, friendly people, who lead comfortable lives in their large, plain but well-furnished houses. A lot of pensioners spend their declining years there. The little town is justifiably known as ‘La ville des millionnaires’, because shortly before the war it could boast no fewer than forty such.

  The Great War pulled the place out of its enchanted sleep, and turned it into the focal point of enormous battles. Brisk new life went clattering over the cobbles, and jangled the little windows, behind which anxious faces peeped out to try and see what on earth was going on. Strangers drank lovingly maintained cellars dry, jumped into mighty mahogany beds, and in their continual succession disturbed the contemplative ease of the people, who now stood huddled together on corners and in doorways of their unrecognizable little town, telling each other – not too loudly – horror stories about the occupation, and the certain prospects for the ultimate victory of their own.

  The men lived in barracks, the officers were accommodated along the Rue des Liniers. During our time there, that street came to resemble a street of student digs; wide-ranging conversations out of windows, bouts of nocturnal singing, and various scrapes and adventures were the things with which we largely concerned ourselves.

  Every morning, we moved out to exercise on the large square by the subsequently renowned village of Fontaine. I had the sort of task that was congenial to me, as Colonel von Oppen had entrusted me with assembling and training a body of storm troops. I had plenty of volunteers for this body, but found I preferred to stick to the tried-and-tested associates from my various patrols and missions. And since this was a new unit, I devised the rules and training myself.

  My billet was most agreeable; my hosts, a kindly jewellers’ couple by the name of Plancot-Bourlon, rarely let me eat my lunch without sending up some delicacy or other. And in the evenings we often sat up over a cup of tea, played cards and chatted. The perennial question came up a lot, of course: Why does mankind have wars?

  In
these hours together, Monsieur Plancot often related tricks and pranks played upon one another by the idle and witty folk of Cambrai, who in peacetime had caused the streets and bars and markets to ring with laughter, and reminded me of my dear ‘Uncle Benjamin’.

  For example, one particular joker had sent a letter to all the hunchbacks of the area, summoning them to appear before a certain notary over an important matter of an inheritance. Then, hiding behind a curtain in a house across the way at the hour in question with a few friends, he enjoyed the spectacle of seventeen furious rowdy goblins, assailing the poor notary.

  There was another good story about an old spinster who lived opposite, who had a strange long and skew neck. Twenty years before, she had been known as a girl who was in a rush to get married. Six young fellows presented themselves, and to each she gladly gave permission to speak to her father. The following Sunday, a substantial coach drew up with the six suitors inside, each one with a bouquet of flowers. In her alarm and confusion, the girl locked the door and hid herself, while the young fellows delighted the street with their larking about.

  Or this one: one day at the market, a notorious young man of Cambrai goes up to a farmer’s wife and, pointing to a soft white cheese prettily sprinkled with herbs, asks her:

  ‘How much do you want for that cheese?’

  ‘Twenty sous, monsieur!’

  He gives her the twenty sous.

  ‘So the cheese belongs to me now, is that right?’

  ‘Of course, monsieur!’

  ‘So I can do whatever I want with it?’