"Fire! Fire! Let them have it! Put it into them! Fire!"
The men reload their magazines swiftly, resting their cheeks … (Censored) … and fire a volley at point blank range. Out there, men fall in swathes! The gap widens and widens until no one remains standing before us, not a living soul! But the shadows nevertheless are still moving onwards to the right and left; they intend to outflank, to envelop us. And to the right and left there is not a man to stem for a moment that rushing torrent, which, at the best, we have only been able to check for an instant, and divert to either side. The wave will reform behind us—all will be lost!
"Hurrah! Vorwärts!"
They excite themselves with their own cries, like savages. Their raucous voices rise loud above the crackling rifle fire, toned and modulated in the flux of the wind-driven rain and the louder detonations close at hand. Suddenly the wind has increased; the rain descends literally in torrents: one gains the impression that the fury of the fighters has moved the very heavens.
All at once a flame leaps up, glistening on brass buckles and helmet spikes, turning bayonets to silver. The Germans have set fire to the pile of straw beneath which the major and captain were snugly sleeping a short while since. The flames writhe and waver this way and that at the wind's caprice; drops of rain flying before the glow become like the spray of a rushing fountain. The faces of my men are pale and streaming with water; their eyes, under frowning brows, are dark-ringed and like sparks of steel, expressing at once their eagerness to strike and kill as well as to live.
"First section, right face!…"
Can they hear me?…
"Right face!…"
They do not hear me. The unceasing spatter of rifle fire, the moaning wind, the rain beating a tattoo on mess-tins, and above all, the shouting of human voices drown my command.
"Let me pass, you!"