"Ah, not much there, his pockets have been cleared out!" This was the only funeral orison he had.[12]
The other bodies were covered with wounds, for the bayonet is a terrible weapon. A little farther on were the Fusiliers who had been assassinated in so cowardly a way. Their wounds were frightful.
After this alert, the morning was almost tranquil. It was not until the afternoon, that the Artillery began once more its nerve-wearing fire.
October 27th. Dixmude-Kapelhoek. After their failure of yesterday, it seemed as though the Germans wanted to change the point of attack. They went towards the north. Thirteen footbridges had been thrown over the Yser towards Tervaete and some of their troops had landed on our side of the river.
A French Division reinforced us, thus enabling us to make a vigorous counter-offensive, but without regaining all the lost land. The Artillery struggle began again more fiercely than ever. The heavy guns were used almost entirely. Their projectiles seemed to cut the air. The explosions were terrible, sending up into the air enormous masses of earth. The splitting of the shells was such that at 800 metres fragments arrived like a whirlwind with a threatening bee-like noise. We picked up a fragment 45 centimetres long, by 12 broad and 6 in thickness. Taubes were flying overhead. Around Dixmude, the network of trenches was getting more and more complicated. It was getting gradually smaller, and the encircling movement had commenced.
We remained at Dixmude until the 6th of November. On that day, French batteries came to relieve us, and on that day we had only one cannon left out of twelve; the eleven others had been disabled. We had seen the grip getting tighter and tighter, the cannonading more violent, the firing more intense, and the assaults more frequently repeated. When necessity obliged us to leave, we had, at any rate, seen the inanity of the adversaries' furious attacks and their recoil from the quiet, mounting water and the inundation, which had just begun at the right moment. We had been able to guard intact the last shred of our beloved Belgium.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] According to information taken from an account by Major Hellebaut.
[11] This information was obtained from an account given by Artillery Major Hellebaut.
[12] The Major's name was von Oidtmann. He was in command of a Battalion of the 222nd Augusta Regiment. The Lieutenant's linen was marked P. and P.C.