CHAPTER XXII
FROM THE TRENCHES OF PRZASNYSZ TO THE CAMP OF MAKOW
I was in a very unpleasant fix. I could not obtain leave to go back to my old comrades: if I went without permission I ran grave risk of being considered a spy or a traitor and being treated as one. Life had become so very joyless and unpleasant, that I felt I could quit it without much regret; but I was not quite prepared to be sent out of it with the contumely due to a spy, or dishonourable man, to say nothing of the misgivings I entertained concerning hanging or shooting by a provost's squad.
I wrote a letter or two, and tried to get them forwarded to Captain Sawmine. The trench officer (a Major, I think) took the first of these notes, and examined it; poised it at every possible angle; turning it this way and that, and upside down; and unable to make anything of it, put it in his pocket. I hoped he intended to send it on to its destination: but several days elapsed, and I received no reply, so I wrote another, and with a respectful salute, handed it to the gentleman. He took it from my hand, shook his head, and tore it to fragments, which he cast to the wind.
I was not at much trouble to conceal my annoyance and contempt of this conduct, whereupon he got very angry; and I perceived that I should have to be cautious how I behaved before him: so I went back to my pickelhaube-sniping, and thought the matter out.
That night the enemy made an attack upon us, and there was some hand-to-hand fighting. It was soon over, and the Germans driven back to their own trench, with a loss of fifty or sixty men, and eight or ten prisoners. It was rather a trifling affair; but our people hankered after revenge, as I could very well see.
The second night afterwards we made a counter-attack with about two battalions, not counting the supports. The Germans evidently expected it: for they had kept up an almost incessant rain of shells, great and small. Our guns had replied, and done some damage. Particularly, they had cut away the wire entanglements of the enemy's trenches, and prevented him from repairing it.
The intervening space we had to rush across was about fifty yards; but my feet were now so bad that I could only hobble forward. The first line that got into the trench made very short work of the foe. When I dropped into it, the bottom was covered with dead and dying men. Others were rushing away through tunnelled traverses; but they suffered very severely, and in less than five minutes the work was in our hands.
The Germans made three determined attempts to retake it, but they all failed, with loss to them; though the affair was on a comparatively small scale. At last, about five o'clock in the morning, they exploded two mines simultaneously. These mines must have been prepared beforehand in anticipation of the capture of the salient of the trench, on the faces of which they were concealed. They cost us about twenty men, several of whom were buried and had to be dug out. Unfortunately they were dead when recovered, as were nearly all who happened to be in the vicinity of the explosions.
Another mine, fired lower down the trench, in the apparent belief that we had reached the point, killed some of their own men, who were crowding the spot in a wild endeavour to escape from the bayonets of our men.