06 - Chapter 6. All Quiet on the Western Front.

06 - Chapter 6. All Quiet on the Western Front.  
Considered by many to be the greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front is the chronicle of a German soldier fighting in the trenches of World War I, including the severe physical suffering and emotional trauma that will leave many unable to readjust to civilian life afterward.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter six of All Quiet on the Western Front by
Eric Maria Omark, translated by Arthur Wesley Ween. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Chapter six. There are
rumors of an offensive. We go up to the front
two days earlier than usual. On the way we pass

(00:23):
a shelled school house. Stacked up against its longer side
is a high double wall of yellow, unpolished, brand new coffins.
They still smell of firm and pine and the forest.
There are at least a hundred. That's a good preparation
for the offensive, says Mueller, astonished. There for us growls dettering.

(00:48):
Don't talk rot, says Kat to him angrily. You be
thankful if you get so much as a coffin, grins Jodden.
They'll slip you a waterproof sheet for your old aunt,
Sally of a carcass. The others jest two unpleasant jests.
But what else can a man do. The coffins are

(01:08):
really for us. The organization surpasses itself in that kind
of thing. Ahead of us, everything is simmering. The first
night we try to get our bearings. When it is
fairly quiet, we can hear the transports behind the enemy lines.
Rolling ceaselessly until dawn. Kat says they do not go back,

(01:29):
but are bringing up troops, troops, munitions and shells. The
English artillery has been strengthened that we can detect at once.
There are at least four more batteries of twenty fives.
To the right of the farm and behind the poplars
they have put in trench mortars. Besides these, they have

(01:49):
brought up a number of those little French beasts with
instantaneous fuses. We are in low spirits. After we have
been in the dugouts two hours, our own shells begin
to fall in the trench. This is the third time
in four weeks. If it were simply a mistaken aim,
no one would say anything. But the truth is that

(02:11):
the barrels are worn out. The shots are often so
uncertain that they land within our own lines. Tonight two
of our men were wounded by them. The front is
a cage in which we must wait fearfully whatever may happen.
We lie under the network of arching shells and live
in a suspense of uncertainty over us. Chance hovers. If

(02:36):
a shot comes weak and duck. That is all we
neither know nor can determine where it will fall. It
is this chance that makes us indifferent. A few months
ago I was sitting in a dugout playing scat. After
a while, I stood up and went to visit some
friends in another dugout. On my return nothing more to

(03:00):
be seen of the first one. It had been blown
to pieces by a direct hit. I went back to
the second and arrived just in time to lend a
hand digging it out. In the interval it had been buried.
It is just as much a matter of chance that
I am still alive as that I might have been hit.

(03:20):
In a bomb proof dugout, I may be smashed to atoms,
and in the open may survive ten hours bombardment unscathed.
No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes
in chance and trusts his luck. We must look out
for our bread. The rats have become much more numerous

(03:40):
lately because the trenches are no longer in good condition.
Dettering says it is a sure sign of a coming bombardment.
The rats here are particularly repulsive. They are so fat,
the kind we call corpse rats. They have shocking, evil
naked faces, and it is nauseating to see their long

(04:02):
nude tails. They seem to be mighty hungry. Almost every
man has had his bread gnawed. Crop, wrapped his in
his waterproof sheet and put it under his head. But
he cannot sleep because they run over his face to
get at it. Dead Ering meant to outwit them. He

(04:22):
fastened a thin wire to the roof and suspended his
bread from it. During the night, when he switched on
his pocket torch, he saw the wire swinging to and
fro on the bread was writing a fat rat. At
last we put a stop to it. We cannot afford
to throw the bread away because already we have practically

(04:43):
nothing left to eat in the morning, so we carefully
cut off the bits of bread that the animals have gnawed.
The slices we cut off are heaped together in the
middle of the floor. Each man takes out his spade
and lies down, prepared to strike dead ering Crop and
cat hold their pocket lamps ready. After a few minutes

(05:03):
we hear the first shuffling and tugging. It grows now
it is the sound of many little feet. Then the
torches switch on, and every man strikes at the heap,
which scatters with a rush. The result is good. We
toss the bits of rat over the parapet, and again
lie in wait. Several times we repeat the process. At

(05:28):
last the beasts get wise to it, or perhaps they
have scented the blood. They return no more. Nevertheless, before morning,
the remainder of the bread on the floor has been
carried off. In the adjoining sector they attacked two large
cats and a dog, bit them to death and devoured them.

(05:49):
Next day there is an issue of a dammer cheese.
Each man gets almost a quarter of a cheese. In
one way that is all to the good, for a
dammer is taste. But in another way it is vile,
because the fat red balls have long been a sign
of a bad time coming. Our forebodings increase as rum

(06:11):
is served out. We drink it, of course, but are
not greatly comforted. For days we loaf about and make
war on the rats. Ammunition and hand grenades become more plentiful.
We even overhaul the bayonets, that is to say, the
ones that have a saw on the blunt edge. If

(06:31):
the fellows over there catch a man with one of those,
he's killed at sight. In the next sector, some of
our men were found whose noses were cut off, and
their eyes poked out with their own saw bayonets. Their
mouths and noses were stuffed with sawdust, so that they suffocated.
Some of the recruits have bayonets of this kind. We

(06:53):
take them away and give them the ordinary kind. But
the bayonet has practically lost its importance. It is usually
the fashion now to charge with bombs and spades. Only
the sharpened spade is a more handy and many sided weapon.
Not only can it be used for jabbing a man
under the chin, but it is much better for striking

(07:15):
with because of its greater weight, and if one hits
between the neck and shoulder, it easily cleaves as far
down as the chest. The bayonet frequently jams on the thrust,
and then a man has to kick hard on the
other fellow's belly to pull it out again, and in
the interval he may easily get one himself, and once

(07:36):
more the blade often gets broken off. At night, they
send over gas. We expect the attack to follow, and
lie with their masks on, ready to tear them off
as soon as the first shadow appears. Dawn approaches without
anything happening, only the everlasting nerve wracking roll behind the enemy. Lines, trains, trains, loriries.

(08:01):
But what are they concentrating? Our artillery fires on it continually,
but still it does not cease. We have tired faces
and avoid each other's eyes. It will be like the psalm,
says Cat gloomily. There we were shelled steadily for seven
days and nights. Kat has lost all his fun since

(08:25):
we have been here, which is bad for Kat is
an old front hog and can smell what is coming.
Only Chad seems pleased with the good rations and the rum.
He thinks we might even go back to rest without
anything happening at all. It almost looks like it. Day
after day passes. At night, I squat in the listening post.

(08:48):
Above me, the rockets and parachute lights shoot up and
float down again. I am cautious and tense. My heart thumps.
My eyes turn again and again to the luminous dial
of my watch. The hands will not budge. Sleep hangs
on my eyelids. I work my toes in my boots
in order to keep awake. Nothing happens till I am relieved,

(09:12):
only the everlasting rolling over there. Gradually we grow calmer
and place scat and poker continually. Perhaps we will be lucky.
All day, the sky is hung with observation balloons. There
is a rumor that the enemy are going to put
tanks over and use low flying planes for the attack,

(09:34):
But that interests us less than when we hear of
the new flame throwers. We wake up in the middle
of the night. The earth booms, heavy fire is falling
on us. We crouch into corners. We distinguish shells of
every caliber. Each man lays hold of his things and

(09:54):
looks again every minute to reassure himself that they are
still there. The dugout eaves, the night roars and flashes.
We look at each other in the momentary flashes of light,
and with pale faces and pressed lips, shake our heads.
Every man is aware of the heavy shells tearing down
the parapet, rooting up the embankment, and demolishing the upper

(10:18):
layers of concrete. When a shell lands in the trench,
we note how the hollow, furious blast is like a
blow from the paw of a raging beast of prey.
Already by morning, a few of the recruits are green
and vomiting. They are too inexperienced. Slowly, the great light

(10:39):
trickles into the post and pales the flashes of the shells.
Morning is come. The explosion of minds mingles with the gunfire.
That is the most dementing convulsion of all. The whole
region where they go up becomes one grave. The reliefs
go out. The observers stagger in, covered with dirt and trembling.

(11:01):
One lies down in silence in the corner and eats
the other. A reservist reinforcement sobs twice. He has been
flung over the parapet by the blast of the explosions,
without getting any more than shell shock. The recruits are
eyeing him. We must watch them. These things are catching already.

(11:22):
Some lips begin to quiver. It is good that it
is growing daylight. Perhaps the attack will come before noon.
The bombardment does not diminish. It is falling in the
rear too. As far as one can see, it spouts
fountains of mud and iron. A wide belt is being raked.

(11:46):
The attack does not come, but the bombardment continues slowly.
We become mute. Hardly a man speaks. We cannot make
ourselves understood. Our trench is almost gone. At many places
it is only eighteen inches high. It is broken by
holes and craters and mountains of earth. A shell lands

(12:08):
square in front of our post. At once it is dark.
We are buried and must dig ourselves out. After an hour,
the entrance is clear again, and we are calmer because
we have had something to do. Our company commander scrambles
in and reports that two dugouts are gone. The recruits

(12:29):
calm themselves when they see him. He says that an
attempt will be made to bring up food this evening.
That sounds reassuring. No one had thought of it except Yadden.
Now the outside world seems to draw a little nearer.
If food can be brought up, think the recruits, then
it can't really be so bad. We do not disabuse them.

(12:53):
We know that food is as important as ammunition, and
only for that reason must be brought up. But it miscarries.
A second party goes out, and it also turns back. Finally,
Cat tries, and even he reappears without accomplishing anything. No
one gets through. Not even a fly is small enough

(13:15):
to get through such a barrage. We pull in our
belts tighter and chew every mouthful three times as long.
Still the food does not last out. We are damnably hungry.
I take out a scrap of bread, eat the white,
and put the crust back in my knapsack. From time
to time I nibble at it. The night is unbearable.

(13:40):
We cannot sleep, but stare ahead of us and doze.
Child regrets that we waste to the gnawed pieces of
bread on the rats. We would gladly have them again
to eat. Now we are short of water too, but
not seriously yet. Towards morning, while it is still dark,
there is some excitement through the entrance rushes in a

(14:02):
swarm of fleeing rats that try to storm the walls.
Torches light up the confusion. Everyone yells and curses and slaughters.
The madness and despair of many hours unloads itself in
this outburst. Faces are distorted, arms strike out, the beast scream.
We just stop in time to avoid attacking one another.

(14:25):
The onslaught has exhausted us. We lie down to wait again.
It is a marvel that our post has had no
casualty so far. It is one of the few deep dugouts.
A corporal creeps in. He has a loaf of bread
with him. Three people have had the luck to get
through during the night and bring some provisions, they say.

(14:49):
The bombardment extends undiminished as far as the artillery lines.
It is a mystery where the enemy gets all his shells.
We wait and wait. By midday, what I expected happens.
One of the recruits has a fit. I have been
watching him for a long time, grinding his teeth and

(15:10):
opening and shutting his fists. These hunted, protruding eyes, we
know them too well. During the last few hours he
has had merely the appearance of calm. He had collapsed
like a rotten tree. Now he stands up stealthily, creeps
across the floor, hesitates a moment, and then glides towards

(15:33):
the door. I intercept him and say, where are you going.
I'll be back in a minute, says he and tries
to push past me. Wait a bit, the shelling will
stop soon. He listens, and for a moment his eye
becomes clear. Then again he has the glowering eyes of

(15:53):
a mad dog. He is silent. He shoves me aside.
One minute, lad, I say, Cat notices just as the
recruit shakes me off. Cat jumps in and we hold him.
Then he begins to rave. Leave me alone, Let me
go out. I will go out. He won't listen to

(16:15):
anything and hits out. His mouth is wet and pours
out words, half choked, meaningless words. It is a case
of claustrophobia. He feels as though he is suffocating here
and was to get out at any price. If we
let him go, he would run about everywhere regard us
of cover. He is not the first. Though he raves

(16:39):
and his eyes roll. It can't be helped. We have
to give him a hiding to bring him to his senses.
We do it quickly and mercilessly, and at last he
sits down quietly. The others have turned pale. Let's hope
it deters them. This bombardment is too much for the
poor devil's They have been sent straight from a recruiting

(17:01):
depot into a barrage that is enough to turn an
old soldier's hair gray. After this affair, the sticky close
atmosphere works more than ever on our nerves. We sit
as if in our graves waiting only to be closed in.
Suddenly it howls and flashes terrifically. The dugout cracks in

(17:23):
all its joints under a direct hit, fortunately only a
light one that the concrete blocks are able to withstand it.
Rings metallically, the walls reel, rifles, helmets, earth, mud and
dust fly everywhere. Sulfur fumes pour in. If we were
in one of those light dugouts that they have been

(17:43):
building lately instead of this deep one, not one of
us would now be alive. But the effect is bad
enough even so. The recruit starts to rave again, and
two others follow suit. One jumps up and rushes out.
We have trouble with the other two. I start after
the one who escapes, and wonder whether to shoot him

(18:05):
in the leg. Then it shrieks again. I fling myself down,
and when I stand up, the wall of the trench
is plastered with smoking splinters, lumps of flesh, and bits
of uniform. I scramble back. The first recruit seems actually
to have gone insane. He butts his head against the

(18:25):
wall like a goat. We must try tonight to take
him to the rear. Meanwhile, we bind him, but in
such a way that in case of attack he can
be released at once. Cat suggests a game of scat.
It is easier when a man has something to do,
but it is no use. We listen for every explosion

(18:46):
that comes close, miscount the tricks and fail to follow suit.
We have to give it up. We sit as though
in a hissing boiler that is being belabored from without
on all sides. Night again, we are deadened by the strain,
a deadly tension that scrapes along one's spine like a

(19:08):
gapped knife. Our legs refuse to move, our hands tremble.
Our bodies are a thin skin stretched painfully over repressed madness,
over an almost irresistible bursting roar. We have neither flesh
nor muscles any longer. We dare not look at one
another for fear of some incalculable thing, so we shut

(19:30):
our teeth. It will end, it will end, Perhaps we
will come through. Suddenly the near explosion cease. The shelling continues,
but it has lifted and falls behind us. Our trench
is free. We seize the hand grenades, pitch them out
in front of the dugout, and jump after them. The

(19:52):
bombardment has stopped, and a heavy barrage now falls behind us.
The attack has come. No one will believe that in
this howling waste there could still be men. But steel
helmets now appear on all sides out of the trench
and fifty yards from us. A machine gun is already
in position and barking. The wire entanglements are torn to pieces,

(20:15):
yet they offer some obstacle. We see the storm troops coming.
Our artillery opens fire, machine guns rattle, rifles crack. The
charge works its way across Hia and Crop. Begin with
the hand grenades. They throw as fast as they can,
others past them the handles with the strings already pulled.

(20:37):
Hia throws seventy five yards, Crop sixty. It has been measured.
The distance is important. The enemy, as they run, cannot
do much. Before they are within forty yards. We recognize
the distorted faces, the smooth helmets. They are French. They
have already suffered heavily. When they reach the remnants of

(20:57):
the barbed wire entanglements. Old line has gone down before
our machine guns. Then we have a lot of stoppages,
and they come nearer. I see one of them, his
face upturned, fall into a wire cradle. His body collapses,
his hands remain suspended as though he were praying. Then

(21:17):
his body drops clean away, and only his hands, with
the stumps of his arms shot off, now hang in
the wire. The moment we are about to retreat, three
faces rise up from the ground in front of us
under one of the helmets, a dark pointed beard and
two eyes that are fastened on me. I raise my hand,
but I cannot throw into those strange eyes. For one

(21:40):
mad moment, the whole slaughter whirls like a circus round
me and these two eyes that are alone motionless. Then
the head rises up a hand a movement, and my
hand grenade flies through the air and into him. We
make for the rear, pull wire cradles into the trench,
and leave bombs behind us. With the string pull, which

(22:01):
ensure us a fiery retreat. The machine guns are already
firing from the next position. We have become wild beasts.
We do not fight. We defend ourselves against annihilation. It
is not against men that we fling our bombs. What
do we know of men? In this moment when death
with hands and helmets is hunting us down. Now, for

(22:23):
the first time in three days, we can see his face. Now,
for the first time in three days, we can oppose him.
We feel a mad anger. No longer do we lie
helpless waiting on the scaffold. We can destroy and kill
to save ourselves, to save ourselves and be revenged. The
crouch behind every corner, behind every barrier of barbed wire,

(22:47):
and hurl heaps of explosives at the feet of the
advancing enemy. Before we run the blast of the hand
grenades andpinges powerfully on our arms and legs. Crouching like cats,
we run on overmed by this wave that bears us along,
that fills us with ferocity, turning us into thugs, into murderers,
into godly knows what devils this wave that multiplies our

(23:11):
strength with fear and madness and greed of life, seeking
and fighting for nothing but our deliverance. If your own
father came over with them, you would not hesitate to
fling a bomb into him. The forward trenches have been abandoned.
Are they still trenches? They are blown to pieces, annihilated.

(23:31):
There are only broken bits of trenches, holes linked by tracks,
nests of craters. That is all, but the enemy's casualties increase.
They did not count on so much resistance. It is
nearly noon. The sun blazes hotly. The sweat stings in
our eyes. We wipe it off on our sleeves, and

(23:53):
often blood with it. At last, we reach a trench
that is in a somewhat better condition. It is manned
and ready for the counter attack it receives us. Our
guns open up in full blast and cut off the
enemy attack. The lines behind us stop. They can advance
no farther. The attack is crushed by our artillery. We

(24:17):
watch the fire lifts a hundred yards and we break forward.
Beside me, a lance corporal has his head torn off.
He runs a few steps more while the blood spouts
from his neck like a fountain. It does not come
quite to hand to hand fighting. They are driven back.
We arrive once again at our shattered trench and pass

(24:40):
on beyond it. Oh this turning back again. We reach
the shelter of the reserves and year to creep in
and disappear, But instead we must turn round and plunge
again into the horror. If we were not automada at
that moment, we would continue lying there, exhausted and without will.

(25:00):
But we are swept forward again, powerless, madly, savage and raging.
We will kill, for they are still our mortal enemies.
Their rifles and bombs are aimed against us, and if
we don't destroy them, they will destroy us. The brown
earth the torn blasted earth with a greasy shine under

(25:22):
the sun's rays. The earth is the background of this restless,
gloomy world of automatons. Our gasping is the scratching of
a quill. Our lips are dry, our heads are debauched
with stupor. Thus we stagger forward and into our pierced
and shattered souls bores the tutoring image of the brown earth,

(25:42):
with the greasy sun, and the convulsed and dead soldiers
who lie there. It can't be helped, who cry and
clutch at our legs as we spring away over them.
We have lost all feeling for one another. We can
hardly control ourselves. When our hunted glance lights on the
form of some other man. We are insensible, dead men, who,

(26:04):
through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to
run and to kill. A young Frenchman lags behind. He
is overtaken. He puts up his hands in one he
still holds his revolver. Does he mean to shoot or
to give himself up? A blow from a spade cleaves
through his face. A second sees it and tries to

(26:26):
run farther. A bayonet jabs into his back. He leaps
in the air, his arms thrown wide, his mouth wide open, yelling.
He staggers in his back. The bayonet quivers. A third
throws away his rifle, cowers down with his hands before
his eyes. He is left behind with a few other
prisoners to carry off the wounded. Suddenly, in the pursuit,

(26:51):
we reach the enemy line. We are so close on
the heels of our retreating enemies that we reach it
almost at the same time as they. In this way
we suffer few casualties. A machine gun barks, but is
silenced with a bomb. Nevertheless, the couple of seconds has
sufficed to give us five stomach wounds. With the butt

(27:13):
of his rifle, cat smashes to pulp the face of
one of the unwounded machine gunners. We baan at the
others before they have time to get out their bombs. Then,
thirstily we drink the water they have for cooling the gun. Everywhere,
wirecutters are snapping, planks are thrown across the entanglements. We

(27:33):
jump through the narrow entrances and into the trenches. Highest
strikes his spade into the neck of a gigantic Frenchman
and throws the first hand grenade We duck behind a
breastwork for a few seconds. Then the whole section of
the trench before us is empty. The next throw whizzes
obliquely over the corner and clears a passage. As we

(27:55):
run past, we toss handfuls down into the dugouts. The
earth shutters, crashes, dully and stifled. We stumble over slippery
lumps of flesh, over yielding bodies. I fall into an
open belly, on which lies a clean new officer's cap.
The fight ceases, we loose touch with the enemy. We

(28:17):
cannot stay here long, but must retire under cover of
our artillery, to our own position. No sooner do we
know this than we dive into the nearest dugouts, and
with the utmost haste, sees on whatever provisions we can see,
especially the tins of corned beef and butter. Before we
clear out. We get back pretty well. There has been

(28:38):
no further attack by the enemy. We lie for an hour,
panting and resting, before anyone speaks. We are so completely
played out that, in spite of our great hunger, we
do not think of the provisions. Then gradually we become
something like men again. The corned beef over there is
famous along the whole. Occasionally it has been the chief

(29:03):
reason for a flying raid on our part. For our
nourishment is generally very bad. We have a constant hunger.
We bagged five tins altogether. The fellows over there are
well looked after. It seems a luxury to us, with
our hunger pangs, our turnip jam, and meat so scarce

(29:23):
that we simply grab at it. Haya has scored a
thin loaf of white French bread and stuck it in
behind his belt like a spade. It is a bit
bloody at one corner, but that can be cut off.
It is a good thing we have something decent to eat.
At last, we still have a use for all our strength.
Enough to eat is just as valuable as a good dugout.

(29:46):
It can save our lives. That is the reason we
are so greedy for it. Jadon has captured two water
bottles full of cognac. We passed them round the evening
benediction began. Night comes out of the craters, rise the mists.
It looks as though the holes were full of ghostly secrets.

(30:08):
The white vapor creeps painfully round before it ventures to
steal away over the edge then long streaks stretch from
crater to crater. It is chilly. I am on sentry
and stare into the darkness. My strength is exhausted, as
always after an attack, so it is hard for me
to be alone with my thoughts. They are not properly thoughts.

(30:32):
They are memories which, in my weakness turn homeward and
strangely move me. The parachute lights shoot upwards, and I
see a picture a summer evening. I am in the
cathedral cloister and look at the tall rose trees that
bloom in the middle of the little cloister garden, where
the monks lie buried. Around the walls are the stone

(30:53):
carvings of the stations of the Cross. No one is there.
A great quietness rules in this blossom in quadrangle. The
sun lies warm on the heavy gray stones. I place
my hand upon them and feel the warmth. At the
right hand corner, the green cathedral spire ascends into the
pale blue sky of the evening. Between the glowing columns

(31:15):
of the cloister is the cool darkness that only churches have.
And I stand there and wonder whether when I am twenty,
I shall have experienced the bewildering emotions of love. The
image is alarmingly near. It touches me before it dissolves
in the light of the next star shell. I lay
hold of my rifle to see that it is in trim.

(31:38):
The barrel is wet. I take it in my hand
and rub off the moisture with my fingers. Between the
meadows behind our town there stands a line of old
pouplers by a stream. They were visible from a great distance,
and although they grew on one bank only, we called
them the Paupler Avenue. Even as children, I had a

(32:00):
great love for them. They drew us vaguely thither. We
played truant the whole day by them, and listened to
their rustling. We sat beneath them on the bank of
the stream, and let our feet hang over in the
bright swift waters. The pure fragrance of the water and
the melody of the wind in the poplars held our fancies.

(32:20):
We love them dearly, and the image of those days
still makes my heart pause in its beating. It is
strange that all the memories that come have these two qualities.
They are always completely calm, that is predominant in them.
And even if they are not really calm, they become so.
They are soundless apparitions that speak to me with looks

(32:43):
and gestures, silently without any word. And it is the
alarm of their silence that forces me to lay hold
of my sleeve and my rifle, lest I should abandon
myself to the liberation and allurement in which my body
would dilate and gently pass way into the still forces
that lie behind these things. They are quiet in this

(33:06):
way because quietness is so unattainable for us now at
the front, there is no quietness, and the curse of
the front reaches so far that we never pass beyond it.
Even in the remote depots and rest areas, the droning
and the muffled noise of shelling is always in our ears.
We are never so far off that it is no

(33:27):
more to be heard. But these last few days it
has been unbearable. Their stillness is the reason why these
memories of former times do not awaken desire so much
as sorrow, a strange, inapprehensible melancholy. Once we had such desires,
but they return not. They are past. They belong to

(33:50):
another world that is gone from us. In the barracks
they called forth a rebellious wild, craving for their return,
For then they were still bound to us. We belong
to them, and they to us, even though we were
already absent from them. They appeared in the soldier's songs,
which we sang as we marched between the glow of

(34:11):
the dawn and the black silhouettes of the forests to
drill on the moor. They were a powerful remembrance that
was in us and came from us. But here in
the trenches they are completely lost to us. They arise
no more. We are dead, and they stand remote on
the horizon. They are an apparition, a mysterious reflection drawing

(34:33):
us home that we fear and love without hope. They
are strong, and our desire is strong. But they are unattainable,
and we know it. And even if the scenes of
our youth were given back to us, we would hardly
know what to do. The tender, secret influence that passed
from them into us could not arise again. We longed

(34:57):
to be in them and to move in them. We
longed to remember and to love them, and to be
stirred by the side of them. But it would be
like gazing at the photograph of a dead comrade. Those
are his features. It is his face, and the days
we spent together take on a mournful life in the memory.
But the man himself it is not. We could never

(35:20):
again as the same beings take part in those scenes.
It was not any recognition of their beauty and their
significance that attracted us, but the communion, the feeling of
a comradeship with the things and events of our existence,
which cut us off and made the world of our
parents a thing incomprehensible to us. For then we surrendered

(35:41):
ourselves to events and were lost in them, and the
least little thing was enough to carry us down the
stream of eternity. Perhaps it was only the privilege of
our youth, but as yet we recognized no limits and
saw nowhere and end. We had that thrill of expectation
in the blood which united us with the course of
our days. Today we would pass the senses of our youth.

(36:04):
Like travelers, we are burnt up by hard facts. Like tradesmen,
we understand distinctions, and like butchers necessities. We are no
longer untroubled. We are indifferent. We long to be there,
but could we live there? We are forlorn like children,
and experience like old men. We are crude and sorrowful

(36:28):
and superficial. I believe we are lost. My hands grow cold,
and my flesh creeps, And yet the night is warm.
Only the mist is cold, this mysterious mist that trails
the dead before us and sucks from them their past,
creeping life. By morning, they will be pale and green,

(36:50):
and their blood congealed and black. Still, the parachute rockets
shoot up and cast their pitiless light over the stony landscape,
which is full of craters and frozen lights like a moon.
The blood beneath my skin brings fear and restlessness into
my thoughts. They become feeble and tremble. They desire warmth

(37:11):
and life. They cannot endure without sympathy and communion. They
are disordered before the naked picture of despair. I hear
the rattle of the mes tens and immediately feel a
strong desire for warm food. It would do me good
and comfort me painfully. I force myself to wait until
I am relieved. Then I go into the dugout and

(37:35):
find a mug of barley. It is cooked in fat
and tastes good. I eat it slowly. I remain quiet,
though the others are in a better mood, for the
shelling has died down. The days go by, and the
incredible hours follow one another. As a matter of course,
attacks alternate with counter attacks, and slowly the dead pile

(37:58):
up in the field of craters between the trenches. We
are able to bring in most of the wounded that
do not lie too far off, but many have longed
to wait, and we listen to them dying. For one
of them we search two days in vain. He must
be lying on his belly and unable to turn over.
Otherwise it is hard to understand why we cannot find him.

(38:21):
For it is only when a man has his mouth
close to the ground that it is impossible to gauge
the direction of his cry. He must have been badly hit,
one of those nasty wounds, neither so severe that the
exhausted body at once and a man dreams on in
a half swoon, nor so light that a man endures
the pain and the hope of becoming well again. Kat

(38:44):
thinks he is either a broken pelvis or a shot
through the spine. His chest cannot have been injured, otherwise
he would not have such strength to cry out and
if it were any other kind of wound, it would
be possible to see him moving. He grows gradually hoarser.
The voice sounds so desperate that it prevails everywhere. The

(39:06):
first night, some of our fellows go out three times
to look for him, but when they think they have
located him and crawl across. Next time they hear the voice,
it seems to come from somewhere else. Altogether, we search
in vain until dawn. We scrutinize the field all day
with glasses, but discover nothing. On the second day, the

(39:27):
calls are fainter. That will be because his lips and
mouth have become dry. Our company commander has promised special
leave with three days extra to anyone who finds him.
That is a powerful inducement, But we would do all
that is possible without that, for his cry is terrible.
Cat and Crop even go out in the afternoon, and

(39:49):
Albert gets the lobe of his ear shot off in consequence.
It is to no purpose. They come back without him.
It is easy to understand what he cries. At first,
he called only for help. The second night he must
have some delirium. He talks with his wife and his children.
We often detect the name Elise. Today he merely weeps

(40:14):
by evening the voiced windows to a croaking, But it
persists still through the whole night. We hear it so
distinctly because the wind blows toward our line. In the morning,
when we suppose he must already have long gone to
his rest, that comes across to us one last gurgling rattle.

(40:34):
The days are hot, and the dead lie unburied. We
cannot fetch them all in. If we did, we should
not know what to do with them. The shells will
bury them. Many have their bellies swollen up like balloons.
They hiss, belch, and make movements. The gases in them
make noises. The sky is blue and without clouds. In

(40:58):
the evening it grows sultry, and the heat rises from
the earth. When the wind blows toward us, it brings
the smell of blood, which is heavy and sweet. This
deathly exhalation from the shell hole seems to be a
mixture of chloroform and putrefaction, and fills us with nausea
and wretching. The knights become quiet, and the hunt for

(41:22):
copper driving bands and the silken parachutes of the French
star shells begins. Why the driving bands are so desirable,
No one knows exactly. The collectors merely assert that they
are valuable. Some have collected so many that they will
stoop under the weight of them when we go back.
But Haya at least gives a reason. He intends to

(41:43):
give them to his girl to supplement her garters. At this,
the Frisians explode with mirth. They slap their knees. By jove,
though he's a whit, Haya is, he's got brains. Tian
especially can hard it contains else. He takes the largest
of the rings in his hand, and every now and

(42:03):
then puts his leg through it to show how much
slack there is. High a man, she must have legs
like legs. His thoughts mount somewhat higher, and a behind too.
She must have like a like an elephant. He cannot
get over it. I wish I could play hot hand

(42:24):
with her once my hat. High A beams, proud that
his girl should receive so much appreciation. She's a nice bit,
he says, with self satisfaction. The parachutes are turned to
more practical uses. According to the size of the bust,
three or perhaps four will make a blouse crop, and

(42:46):
I use them as sandkerchiefs. The others send them home.
If the women could see at what risk these bits
of rag are often obtained, they would be horrified. Cat surprises.
Jodden endeavoring with perfect equanim and not the driving band
off a dud. If any one else had tried it,
the thing would have exploded. But Tyadon always has his

(43:07):
luck with him. One morning, two butterflies play in front
of our trench. They are brimstone butterflies with red spots
on their yellow wings. What can they be looking for here?
There is not a plant nor a flower for miles.
They settle on the teeth of a skull. The birds, too,

(43:28):
are just as care free. They have long since accustomed
themselves to the war. Every morning larks as scent from
no man's land. A year ago we watched them nesting.
The young ones grew up too. We have a spell
from the rats in the trench. They are in no
man's land. We know what for they grow fat. When

(43:51):
we see one, we have a crack at it. At
night we hear again the rolling behind the enemy lines.
All day we have only the normal shelling, so that
we are able to repair the trenches. There is always
plenty of amusement the air and sea. To that, there
are countless fights for us to watch every day. Battle

(44:12):
planes don't trouble us, but the observation plans we hate,
like the plague. They put the artillery on to us.
A couple of minutes after they appear, shrapnel and high
explosives begin to drop on us. We lose eleven men
in one day that way, and five of them stretcher bearers.
Two or so smashed that Tiadon remarks you could scrape

(44:33):
them off the wall of the trench with a spoon
and bury them in a mess tin. Another has the
lower part of his body and his legs torn off. Dead,
his chest leans against the side of the trench. His
face is lemon yellow in his beard, still burns a cigarette.
It glows until it dies out on his lips. We

(44:53):
put the dead in a large shell hole. So far
there are three layers, one on top of the other.
Suddenly the shelling begins to pound again. Soon we are
sitting up once more with the rigid tenseness of blank anticipation, attack, counterattack, charge, repulse.
These are words, but what things they signified. We have

(45:17):
lost a good many men, mostly recruits. Reinforcements, have again
been sent up to our sector. It is one of
the new regiments, composed of young fellows called up during
last year. They have had hardly any training and are
sent into the field with only a theoretical knowledge. They
do know what a hand grenade is, it is true,

(45:38):
but they have very little idea of cover, and, what
is most important of all, have no eye for it.
A fold in the ground has to be quite eighteen
inches high before they can see it. Although we need reinforcement,
the recruits give us almost more trouble than they are worth.
They are helpless in this grim fighting area. They fall

(45:58):
like flies. The present method of fighting from posts demands
knowledge and experience. A man must have a feeling for
the contours of the ground, an ear for the sound
and character of the shells, must be able to decide
beforehand where they will drop, how they will burst, and
how to shelter from them. The young recruits, of course,

(46:20):
know none of these things. They get killed simply because
they can hardly tell shrapnel from high explosive. They are
mowned down because they are listening anxiously to the roar
of the big coal boxes, falling far in the rear
and miss the light piping whistle of the low spreading
little daisy cutters. They flock together like sheep instead of scattering,

(46:40):
and even the wounded are shot down like hares by
the airmen. Their pale turnip faces, their pitiful clenched hands,
the miserable courage of these poor devils, The desperate charges
and attacks made by these poor brave devils, who are
so terrified that they dare not cry out loudly, but
with battered chests and torn back belleys and arms and legs,

(47:01):
only whimper softly for their mothers, and cease as soon
as one looks at them. Their sharp, downy dead faces
have the awful expressionlessness of dead children. It brings a
lump into the throat to see how they go over
and run and fall. A man would like to spank them,
they are so stupid, and to take them by the

(47:22):
arm and lead them away from here, where they have
no business to be. They wear gray coats and trousers
and boots, but for most of them the uniform is
far too big and hangs on their limbs. Their shoulders
are too narrow, their bodies too slight, No uniform was
ever made to these childish measurements. Between five and ten

(47:44):
recruits fall to every old hand. A surprise gas attack
carries off a lot of them. They have not yet
learned what to do. We found one dug out full
of them with blue heads and black lips. Some of
them in a shell hole took their masks off too soon.
They did not know that the gas lies longest in

(48:05):
the hollows. When they saw others on top without masks,
they pulled theirs off too, and swallowed enough to scorch
their lungs. Their condition is hopeless. They choke to death
with hemorrhages and suffocation in one part of the trench.
I suddenly run into Himmelstace. We dive into the same dugout, breathless.

(48:27):
We are all lying one beside the other, waiting for
the charge when we run out again. Although I am
very excited, I suddenly think, where's Himmelstace. Quickly I jump
back into the dugout and find him with a small scratch,
lying in a corner, pretending to be wounded. His face
looks sullen. He is in a panic. He is new

(48:49):
to it too, but it makes me mad that the
young recruit should be out there, and he here, get out.
I spit. He does not stir his quiver. His mustache
twitches out. I repeat. He draws up his legs, crouches
back against the wall, and shows his teeth like a cur.

(49:10):
I seize him by the arm and try to pull
him up. He barks that is too much for me.
I grab him by the neck and shake him like
a sack. His head jerks from side to side, you lump.
Will you get out, you hound, you skunk? Sneak out
of it, would you? His eye becomes glassy. I knock

(49:31):
his head against the wall, you cow. I kick him
in the ribs, you swine. I push him toward the
door and shove him out head first. Another wave of
our attack has just come up. A lieutenant is with them.
He sees us and yells forward forward, Join in, follow,

(49:52):
and the word of command does what all my banging
could not. Himmelstos hears the order, looks round him as
if awakened, and follows on. I come after and watch
him go over once more. He is the smart hemistos
of the parade ground. He has even outstripped the lieutenant
and is far ahead, bombardment, barrage, curtain, fire mines, gas tanks,

(50:19):
machine guns, hand grenades, words, words, But they hold the
horror of the world. Our faces are encrusted, our thoughts
are devastated. We are weary to death. When the attack comes,
we shall have to strike many of the men with
our fists to waken them and make them come with us.
Our eyes are burnt, our hands are torn, our knees bleed,

(50:42):
our elbows are raw. How long has it been? Weeks, months, years,
only days? We see time pass in the colorless faces
of the dying. We cram food into us. We run,
we throw, we shoot, we kill, we lie about. We
are feeble and spent, and nothing supports us but the

(51:06):
knowledge that there are still feebler, still more spent, still
more helpless ones there who with staring eyes look upon
us as gods that escape death. Many times in the
few hours of rest we teach them. There, see that
waggle top, that's a mortar coming. Keep down. It will

(51:26):
go clean over. But if it comes this way, then
run for it. You can run from a mortar. We
sharpen their ears to the malicious, hardly audible buzz of
the smaller shells that are not so easily distinguished. They
must pick them out from the general din by their
insect like hum. We explain to them that these are
far more dangerous than the big ones that can be

(51:48):
heard long beforehand. We show them how to take cover
from aircraft, how to simulate a dead man when one
is overrun in an attack, how to time hand grenades
so that they explode half a set before hitting the ground.
We teach them to fling themselves into holes as quick
as lightning before the shells with instantaneous fuses. We show

(52:08):
them how to clean up a trench with a handful
of bombs. We explain the difference between the fuse length
of the enemy bombs and our own. We put them
wise to the sound of gas shells. Show them all
the tricks that can save them from death. They listen.
They are docile, but when it begins again, in their excitement,
they do everything wrong. Hyahestus drags off with a great

(52:33):
wound in his back, through which the long pulses at
every breath. I can only press his hand. It's all up, Paul.
He groans and bites his arm because of the pain.
We see men living with their skulls blown open. We
see soldiers run with their two feet cut off. They
stagger on their splintered stumps into the next shell hole.

(52:55):
A lance corporal crawls a mile and a half on
his hands, dragging a smash knee after him. Another goes
to the dressing station and over his clasped hands bulsh
his intestines. We see men without mouths, without jaws, without faces.
We find one man who has held the artery of
his arm in his teeth for two hours in order
not to bleed to death. The sun goes down, night

(53:18):
comes the shells. Whine life is at an end. Still
the little piece of convulsed earth in which we lie
is held. We have yielded no more than a few
hundred yards of it as a prize to the enemy.
But on every yard there lies a dead man. We
have been relieved. The wheels roll beneath us. We stand dully,

(53:42):
and when the call mind wire comes we bend our knees.
It was summer when we came up, the trees were
still green. Now it is autumn, and the night is
gray and wet. The lorry stop. We climb out a
confused heap of rem and of many names. On either
side stand people dark, calling out the numbers of the regiments,

(54:06):
the companies, And at each call a little group separates
itself off, a small handful of dirty, pallid soldiers, a
dreadfully small handful, and a dreadfully small remnant. Now someone
is calling the number of our company. It is yes,
the company commander. He has got one, two. His arm

(54:27):
is in a sling. We go over to him, and
I recognize Cat and Albert. We stand together, lean against
each other and look at one another, and we hear
the number of our company called again and again he
will call a long time. They do not hear him
in the hospitals and the shell holes. Once again, second

(54:49):
company this way, and then more softly, nobody else. Second company.
He is silent, and then huskily he says, is that all,
and gives the order number. The morning is gray. It
was still summer when we came up, and we were
one hundred and fifty strong. Now we freeze. It is autumn.

(55:13):
The leaves rustle, the voices flutter out wearily. One, two, three, four,
and cea set thirty two. And there is a long
silence before the voice asks anyone else, and waits and
then says softly in squads, and then breaks off and

(55:35):
is only able to finish Second Company with difficulty. Second
Company March Easy. A line, A short line trudges off
into the morning, thirty two men. End of Chapter six