Lizerne
(June, 1915)
By Dr. Duwez, Army Surgeon to the Regiment of Grenadiers
We were walking along the winding attack trench, skirting the Yperlée.
It is a trench that gradually gets more and more shallow. Just where it
ends, the dead bodies of two French soldiers were lying, their faces
black and unrecognisable. Water was running over the injured thigh of
one of them and his flesh was as red as his trousers. The brook among
the wild grasses was full of rubbish of all sorts; and the tall trees
sheltering it were either headless, or they had been mown down, and
were lying shattered on the ground. Some of the branches had resprouted
and the muddy brooklet, in which mouldy bread and tins of provisions
were floating, continued to flow slowly on. Polluted, but glorious,
it went on over crumbling tree trunks and improvised bridges, past
earth shelters and mud banks towards archways that, in the distance,
appear to be covered with flowers. It was flowing on towards that old
gay, laughing valley, little known formerly, but which now bears the
charming and terrible name of the "covered road of the Yperlée."
We then went along the other trench, in which are the tombs of many of
our men. A foot could be seen emerging from the parapet, and everywhere
was that odour that one can never forget, the odour that reveals the
presence of dead bodies more distinctly than the sight of them.
We then went along the parallel one. It curves inwards near Lizerne and
we crossed the road under the district-railway.
By dint of creeping, climbing, and running, we managed to reach the
German trench which forms an arched circle on the other side of the
village. It had been entirely overturned by the shells. We could see
grey coats that had been left behind, stiffened legs emerging from the
embankment, and cartridges. The houses, behind which the trench had
been constructed, had fallen down, whole pieces of the walls together,
but there was more character about them than those of Steenstraete, as
they showed that they had been houses. The whole of the back of one
house had fallen all in a piece. Under the ruins could be seen three
dead bodies of _Joyeux_,[13] their skulls crushed and covered with
long, dull brown hair. I crossed the road and entered a little house,
the general sitting-room of which was still intact. A Boche was lying
there with his limbs stretched out, his face black, his nose flattened,
and his eyes sunken. Flies had left their traces on his chin and
cheeks. He had evidently been searched, as the buttons of his coat had
been cut off, but he still had his boots on.
The whole hamlet was nothing but a heap of ruins. Guns, bayonets, beds
of sacking, and belts were flung about everywhere. The dead could
scarcely be distinguished from the ground which partially covered
them. Shells had hollowed out holes everywhere and on returning from
the other side of the road, I walked over half-buried corpses.
From where we were, we looked over the plain in the distance, the
beautiful plain with its gentle undulations and its groups of trees
here and there. It was quite green and looked so flourishing and
lovely. We could see the brown line of our trenches and those of the
Germans. Nearer to us, all the ground was furrowed with communication
trenches, with elements of defence, with sacks of earth for
fortification. It seemed as though enormous ants had devastated the
beautiful garden of Flanders.
The sky was wonderfully blue. We could see it between the broken-up
roofs, through the holes in the walls, between the branches of the rent
trees, between the fragments of exploded barrels, which were spread out
fan-shaped like palm leaves. The shrubs were already sprouting again
over the ruins. Birds were singing in the midst of the silence, and the
fields of turnips, which had gone to seed and which were flowering,
formed big yellow patches among the corn.
And these were the places which had witnessed such hard fighting, the
places over which avalanches of fire had swept. They were now given
over to silence, and mankind there was nothing more than flattened
carrion, almost in a state of deliquescence, only to be recognised by
his colourless hair and by the blue or grey coat which covered him. And
Nature, as we saw, was ready to cover everything up, Nature which never
dies. In an instant, the products of so many centuries of civilisation
had been annihilated there. But the space devastated, in spite of its
extent, is remarkably limited, and only the works of man and man
himself had suffered. The enemy was there and had seen us, for we were
absolutely in the open. We were comparatively safe though for, near
though we were, we were too small. Shells of 15 calibre began to be
fired again at Lizerne. They fell with a great noise, sending columns
of rubbish and clouds of black smoke into the air. We set off again,
taking with us a German bayonet, a _chéchia_, a shell fuse, and some
yellow and purple pansies of rich colouring, which had flowered in the
deserted gardens. We went back by the intricate trench passages. In
a solitary shelter, by the side of one of these, a man belonging to
the 418th was lying. We recognised him, thanks to his brown, ribbed
velveteen trousers and his pale blue coat, with its two squares of
vivid yellow on the collar. He was lying on his back and some open
letters were on his chest. Some of his friends had fastened some
papers on the entrance to the hole, giving his name. Standing there,
bareheaded, in the glaring sunshine, we remained for a moment looking
at this man, who, here alone, far away from his own people, had seen
his moment of happiness and glory escape him for ever.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 13: Soldiers belonging to the African Battalion.]