THE SWAMP
For the whole of the forenoon we had heard firing in the distance, the
thunder of cannon and the rattle of musketry. Our regiment had been
marched hither and thither. The fight had drawn nearer and nearer. We
were expecting to be under fire at any moment, and then we had to fall
back again, and look for a new place to develop our attack. It seemed as
if the orders that came through were contradictory, and this tension of
uncertainty fell like a blight on our spirits, and got on the nerves
both of officers and men. At length we had wound through a defile, the
steep slopes of which, left and right, were thickly grown with trees.
Things had got into a bit of a mess. We had had to force our way through
undergrowth soaked with rain, through brambles and clumps of tall broom
on which the green pods were still pendent. At times there was nothing
in sight except the roof and wall of greenery.
We breathed more freely when at last the sky spread clear overhead
again.
So now we have reached a green meadow, and are marching straight across
it, but are still unable to see anything of the enemy's forces yet. Even
the firing has died down, and has become more distant than before. It
seemed as if we had come into another, remoter world, and--so we have;
for soon we notice how soft the ground has become under our feet, how
water is oozing up at every step. We shall, if we go on, be right in the
middle of a swamp.
That is the reason of the solitude reigning all around us.
The terrain is impracticable.
To the right and left of us, and all about us, nothing but swamp,
running out into a broad sheet of open water, the depths of which no
one can guess, or tell whether it be fordable.
The head of the column is already swinging round and we are retracing
our steps toward the defile to get out of the rat-trap.
And in the middle of the meadow:
"Halt! Form sections!"
The companies have fallen in. The officers have assembled, and are
pow-wowing. We seem to have lost touch. The sergeant beside me is
swearing up his sleeve, and is cursing at something about lunacy and
blindman's buff. I am gazing up meditatively at the heights, overgrown
with trees and undergrowth, and am thinking what fun it would be if we
were to have to make our way back to the defile now, and in the thick of
it the enemy were to break in on us right and left--no man would come
out of it alive--the battle of the Teutoburger Forest recurs to me--I am
trying to, make out if they are oaks or beeches over there----Of a
sudden there is a flash of lightning from the undergrowth; the very
firmament cracks and sways as if it were going to fall in on us....
"Lie down!" Horror screams somewhere or other.
And trembling, we lie down ... and over our heads rushes something that
howls for our flesh.... What's the next thing? Up and at them now! Rush
straight at the guns. Suffocate their fiery mouths with our flesh and
bones.
"Up! Get up!"
The captain comes up to us at a run. The breath of the iron holds us
tight pressed to the ground as if in a vice....
Turn your head away.
Now!
Now!
Then--A-a-h!
The vault of Heaven has cracked above us, and has spurted down on to the
sand from above. Life is lying there, wriggling on the earth, and the
hands that were clawing the ground are now clutching idly at the
shattered air. I rise to my feet again.... I have not been hit. But the
man who leaped up beside me--he is lying flat in the sand and screaming
in a broken voice. He is lying as if he had been nailed firmly through
his stomach to the earth, and as if he could not get free again. The
body itself is dead, only the arms and legs are still alive. And arms
and legs are working wildly through the air.
"Up! Get up! Quick march!" a voice yells in our ears. We no longer know
who it is shouting to us, and we don't know from what quarter they have
called us.... We leap to our feet. We leave the captain and the wounded
in their blood; we start up and run away, and are running a race with
the shells, for we are running for our bare, naked life. But the shells
have the legs of us. They catch us up from behind in our backs, and
wherever the invisible sheaf plunges hissing down, men are falling with
it and rolling, helter-skelter in their blood. But we speed away over
twitching and dismembered bodies, and over bodies turning somersaults,
and look neither to the right nor to the left. We are on the run, and
shrink into ourselves as we run. We draw our necks deep between our
shoulders, for every man feels that the next moment his head will be
leaping out from between his shoulder-blades from behind.
And eyes of iron are glaring at us from behind. The swamp! The swamp!
The thought suddenly uprears its head in me. We are running blindly
straight into the swamp. Only another twenty paces now--already the
foremost have reached it, and, senseless in their terror, jump into
it--the water spurts up high--and now--what has happened now? Their
feet are stuck fast--they tilt over forwards--they claw for something to
hold on to--the rifle flies out of their hand--and face forward they
plunge into the water--and close on our heels they come stamping
up--the tight-packed, maddened mob....
"Back! Get back!"
But every one has ceased to be conscious of what he is doing. And though
our eyes start out of our head at the terror we see in front of us,
Death is breathing its cold breath into the back of our neck.
And into the gurgling water, wriggling with bodies and alive with lungs,
over human bodies writhing beneath the water, Death tramples us to the
other bank. Any man who goes down is lost, for they are pressing on
behind us past all holding. The water is already up to our armpits. But
there is a firm bottom beneath our feet. True, the bottom may clutch at
us, and cling round our feet. True, the water may bite savagely at our
flesh with teeth and with nails. But whatever may be trying to draw us
down to itself from below, we trample underfoot. The shoulders of a form
emerge; they plunge down again, and disappear. The faces of drowning
men emerge and cleave to the light, and sink gurgling into the depths.
Lost arms wave about in the air and try to find support on the surface
of the water. We dodge these arms, for whomever they may seize they draw
down with them to Death.
And in the thick of this hurly-burly of Death, amid these whistling
lungs, amid these panting, red, panic-stricken faces, the cloud of
shells strikes home, and hurls its hail of iron overhead. The water
spurts up in jets.
And again!
Explosions and screams, and the hissing of lead, and the shrieks of men,
and blood and water foam up, till no one knows whether he has been hit
or is still alive; for in front of me--so close that I could clutch
it--I see a jugular vein, ripped through, spurting in an arch like a
fountain--and in his blood the fellow hit staggers back, and blood and
howls surfeit the black flood, until it is at length reddened with human
blood--Get on! get on! Don't look round! There--the other bank over
there! There Life is standing and spreading out his arms toward us. Get
on! Before they have murdered all of us in this swamp! Get up! Get up!
Thank God! The water's falling! Only up to the hips now--only up to the
knees.
And now----
Our feet leap on to the dry, blessed land and strike forward beyond all
control, and race over the field. They refuse to obey any orders. They
are racing--racing toward the protection of the forest beckoning us of
its mercy.
There! Headlong in among the trees, and into the bushes, into the
thorns. There they are falling lifeless to the ground, their faces
buried in the soil, and they are squeezing their eyes tight, to shut out
the sight of the accursed blue of heaven that spat down on us so
treacherously--You dogs! You beasts! To shoot us down from behind--it is
nothing more nor less than cowardly assassination.
And slowly breath and consciousness return to us again, and when we have
come to our senses we look at one another with dumb eyes, and these eyes
presage nought that is good.
A great, unspeakable Horror that will never be allayed again has risen
in these eyes.