thoughts that haunted us on the eve of the attack. Bowed down beneath the rain and the shells, the pale soldiers sneered:
‘Morale is high! The troops are raring to go!’
Now begins our final agony.
The attack is certain. But, since frontal assaults that get nowhere must be abandoned, we are to move forward through the trenches. My battalion will attack the German defences with grenades. As a bomber, I will march in the front ranks.
We still don’t know the hour of the attack. Around midday they tell us: ‘It will be this evening or tonight.’
From the latrines which were above the trenches we can see the enemy line. The gently rising plain is crowned in the distance by a wood that has been blasted to pieces, ‘Folly Wood’, and our command apparently proposes to occupy it. A rumour goes round that we are facing the German Imperial Guard and they will greet us with exploding bullets.
What can we do until evening? I have little faith in my grenades, which I do not know how to use. I strip down my rifle, clean it carefully, oil it and wrap it in a cloth. I also check my bayonet. I have no idea how one fights in a trench, in Indian file. But a rifle is a weapon after all, the only one I understand, and I have to get ready to protect my life. I have no faith in my knife either.
Above all, I must not think . . . What could I expect? To die? I must not expect that. To kill? That is the unknown and I have no wish to kill. Glory? This isn’t the place where you get glory; that happens much further back. To advance one, two, three hundred metres into the German positions? I have seen only too well that this will make no difference to events. I have no hatred, no ambition, and no motivation. Yet I must attack . . .
I have a single idea: get through the bullets, the grenades, the shells, get through them all, whether victorious or defeated. And moreover, to be alive is to be victorious . This was also the sole idea of everyone around me.
The old hands are anxious and grumble to calm themselves down. They refuse to do guard duty, but all eagerly volunteer to go to the rear in search of provisions.
Bursts of artillery and machine-gun fire sweep the plain. There’s a bit of sunshine. Far off we can still hear bugles, gunfire, bombardments.
We would like to halt the march of time. Yet dusk descends on the battlefield, separates us from each other, makes us shiver with cold . . . the cold of death . . .
We wait.
Nothing gets any clearer.
I crouch down in a hole to get some sleep. Better not to know in advance!
I remember that I am twenty years old. The age of which the poets sing.
Daylight again. I stretch my stiff legs in the deserted trench and then go to our corporal’s dugout.
‘We’re not attacking?’
‘It’s postponed to this evening.’
Here we go again! One more grim day!
It’s early, and all is quiet on the front. Mist covers the plain and through it come long, heart-rending groans, punctuated by hoarse death-rattles. Our wounded lie between the lines, crying for help. ‘Comrades, brothers, friends, come and get me . . . don’t leave me, I can still live . . .’ You can make out women’s names, and the screams of those who are in unbearable pain: ‘Finish me off!’ And those who curse us: ‘Cowards, cowards!’ There is nothing we can do but pity them, and shudder. In their cries we can hear the cries that are inside us, and which will come out, perhaps this evening . . . It is as if the two armies have kept quiet to hear them and must be red with shame in their trenches.
I withdraw to my hole, cover my head so as not to hear, and try to sleep.
I am awoken a few hours later. Food has finally come: a stew congealed in the dixies, wine, cold coffee, brandy. Our squad gathers round the corporal and he distributes it. I have no appetite, force it down, and finish first. The corporal gives me an armful of newspapers:
‘Read us the news.’
‘Yeah, let’s hear the latest
‘Morale is high! The troops are raring to go!’
Now begins our final agony.
The attack is certain. But, since frontal assaults that get nowhere must be abandoned, we are to move forward through the trenches. My battalion will attack the German defences with grenades. As a bomber, I will march in the front ranks.
We still don’t know the hour of the attack. Around midday they tell us: ‘It will be this evening or tonight.’
From the latrines which were above the trenches we can see the enemy line. The gently rising plain is crowned in the distance by a wood that has been blasted to pieces, ‘Folly Wood’, and our command apparently proposes to occupy it. A rumour goes round that we are facing the German Imperial Guard and they will greet us with exploding bullets.
What can we do until evening? I have little faith in my grenades, which I do not know how to use. I strip down my rifle, clean it carefully, oil it and wrap it in a cloth. I also check my bayonet. I have no idea how one fights in a trench, in Indian file. But a rifle is a weapon after all, the only one I understand, and I have to get ready to protect my life. I have no faith in my knife either.
Above all, I must not think . . . What could I expect? To die? I must not expect that. To kill? That is the unknown and I have no wish to kill. Glory? This isn’t the place where you get glory; that happens much further back. To advance one, two, three hundred metres into the German positions? I have seen only too well that this will make no difference to events. I have no hatred, no ambition, and no motivation. Yet I must attack . . .
I have a single idea: get through the bullets, the grenades, the shells, get through them all, whether victorious or defeated. And moreover, to be alive is to be victorious . This was also the sole idea of everyone around me.
The old hands are anxious and grumble to calm themselves down. They refuse to do guard duty, but all eagerly volunteer to go to the rear in search of provisions.
Bursts of artillery and machine-gun fire sweep the plain. There’s a bit of sunshine. Far off we can still hear bugles, gunfire, bombardments.
We would like to halt the march of time. Yet dusk descends on the battlefield, separates us from each other, makes us shiver with cold . . . the cold of death . . .
We wait.
Nothing gets any clearer.
I crouch down in a hole to get some sleep. Better not to know in advance!
I remember that I am twenty years old. The age of which the poets sing.
Daylight again. I stretch my stiff legs in the deserted trench and then go to our corporal’s dugout.
‘We’re not attacking?’
‘It’s postponed to this evening.’
Here we go again! One more grim day!
It’s early, and all is quiet on the front. Mist covers the plain and through it come long, heart-rending groans, punctuated by hoarse death-rattles. Our wounded lie between the lines, crying for help. ‘Comrades, brothers, friends, come and get me . . . don’t leave me, I can still live . . .’ You can make out women’s names, and the screams of those who are in unbearable pain: ‘Finish me off!’ And those who curse us: ‘Cowards, cowards!’ There is nothing we can do but pity them, and shudder. In their cries we can hear the cries that are inside us, and which will come out, perhaps this evening . . . It is as if the two armies have kept quiet to hear them and must be red with shame in their trenches.
I withdraw to my hole, cover my head so as not to hear, and try to sleep.
I am awoken a few hours later. Food has finally come: a stew congealed in the dixies, wine, cold coffee, brandy. Our squad gathers round the corporal and he distributes it. I have no appetite, force it down, and finish first. The corporal gives me an armful of newspapers:
‘Read us the news.’
‘Yeah, let’s hear the latest
Similar Books
