It is going to be a heavy, heavy, heavy day of fighting.
Patrols establish the fact that F. is free of the enemy's forces. But as we enter the road toward L. the French machine guns at once announce themselves. They sing and whistle and whirr above our heads. After yesterday's losses (half a column of the Fifth Company is still busy burying our dead, laying our wounded in automobiles and wagons to be sent to the hospitals) our artillery will first shoot breaches in the enemy's lines before we advance.
But at midday the field artillery of the Frenchmen already replies to ours. They must have transshipped, at night, from their positions on the canal to L., in the belief that mighty forces were being assembled here for a further tremendous blow. The object of our assignment would in that case already have been for the most part accomplished. But all of us subordinate officers—who neither possess nor should possess an insight into the strategic movement—we have but a single desire: Forward!
For a few minutes, after the first thundering crash of the French artillery, there is deep silence. It seems as if nature itself were holding its breath. The crash had fallen in the alley of poplars along the road. The roadway is strewn with branches and twigs. Just beside the northern column of our battery the monstrous shell has buried itself in the clay soil. A hail of earth-crumbs has rained upon us. We cannot note any other damage. But all the companies that are still in closed formation spread out in order to offer no compact target.
For hours, now, there continues this terrible cannonading backward and forward, this dreadful argument of batteries. Horrible as is the devastation which such an instrument of murder can wreak, you gradually grow accustomed to the roaring storm. And you almost smile because you still lower your head each time. Until you remember: We greet Death, and he greets us.
"Near the church tower southeast of L. where the railway bridge can be seen, are hostile riflemen, strength several companies."
Our cavalry patrol disappears again—a French machine gun fires at it without hitting—and the battalion commander calls to me:
"Company left across the road, right and left of the farmhouse, developing a column on each side, with wide intervals between!"
Quickly the right wing column darts across. My Turkish professor, the Chief Lieutenant, manages it beautifully. One sharpshooter always darts ahead, throws himself on his belly, creeps on; a second follows. At one, two kilometers, scarcely a headpiece is visible. The left column is less successful. Over the heads of the sharpshooters there at once whistle shells. They feel the air pressure; the tremendous noise grips them.
"Dodge! Lie down! Forward only one at a time, with long pauses! You'll betray our positions, fellows!"