For the rest, our life was like that of soldiers in the classic wars of older times. There was nothing in it of the terrors of modern battle which made the Western Front so dreadful. We marched and fought, pursuing an enemy that retreated further and further and avoided a decisive battle. It was warfare as Marlborough or Napoleon knew it. The strategy was simple, and the means of destruction were comparatively simple—the bayonet, the rifle, the field-gun. Our men affected to despise the Russians, but I noticed that the longer they had been at the front, the more they thought of the enemy. The Russians neither harried nor pressed us, they simply gave way. Provided only that they held Hindenburg in the north round Riga, they were content to let us take as much of the barren marshland of Central Russia as we chose. This continual expectation of a battle that never came strained our nerves more than actual fighting did. I remember once advancing on a Russian village, which was situated on the top of a hill. We toiled upwards in that tense and sultry mood which always precedes action, each of us too occupied with his own thoughts to speak. Further and further we trudged, and after some time the sergeant behind me began to point out where he thought the Russian artillery must be posted. On we went, every moment expecting the hail of shrapnel to begin. Finally the suspense became unbearable and the sergeant quite lost his temper. “Why to —— don’t those —— Russians begin shooting at us?” he screamed. “They ought to have begun long ago.” The ungrateful man soon knew, for in a few minutes we came upon the Russian trenches quite deserted. They were beautifully dug, and would have cost us half our strength to storm; and yet, in order to keep the line intact, the Russians had preferred to retreat.

Naturally such experiences had left their mark on the older men. The continual refrain of their talk was, “We should not mind if we knew that in the next action we were going to stop a bullet. It is the uncertainty that is so awful.” At home our corporal had told us that if we were wounded, we should be ready to jump a yard in the air with joy. And to get a “heimatschuss”—a wound serious enough to send you home—was the great desire of most soldiers. After the first action we had been in, we all crowded round the wounded, cheering and congratulating them on their good luck. I do not wish to be misunderstood. None of our men were slackers or malingerers at the front—except our only Jew. When a dangerous job was to be done, there were always plenty of volunteers. But the men hated their work, and they had an especial contempt for the man who could fall so low as to be a soldier by profession.

There were, of course, oases in this life, moments of exquisite beauty, and other times when laughter ruled. There was the spectacle of Russian villages burning by night—enormous masses of smokeless flame leaping to the sky, vivid colour in its intensest and purest form. (Lest any one should think that I was a Nero to gloat over such sights, let me repeat that nothing of value was destroyed in these villages.) Then there were the days and nights we spent in the forest. In those thickets our eyes did not help us much; all we could do was to listen. Our ears grew so subtle that we could distinguish and interpret all the sounds of the forest, and we lived so close to nature that we seemed to become a part of it. So quiet were we that the wild deer used to trip along our line without taking any notice of us. Other German soldiers were not so fortunate in their encounters with the wild beasts of the forests. I have known men so upset by the stillness of the woods that the mere rustling of animals in the undergrowth has made them throw down their arms and take to their heels. A Prussian major was once leading his battalion to the attack, when a wild boar rushed out from his hiding-place and, scuttling between the major’s legs, floored him! The major is said to have cried out, “The enemy is upon us!” and run for his life. But I do not believe that so easily of a Prussian major.

Our chief care was to get enough sleep. We marched by night, in order, I suppose, that the enemies’ spies should not know where we went. The Russians were kept well informed of our movements. This was not wonderful when we consider that wherever we marched we met refugees returning to their homes. We even advanced to battle once through a crowd of these people. Among them there must certainly have been a large number of spies. But by marching at night, when all Russians had to be indoors, we were able suddenly to reinforce threatened positions and give the enemy some disagreeable surprises. The first thing we did after digging ourselves in, was to go to sleep. One of my earliest lessons in the art of war was when I was posted as sentry—in my simplicity I thought against the Russians—while the rest went to sleep. Suddenly the company sergeant-major appeared in our midst and wanted to know why the others were all snoring. Afterwards my corporal took me aside and explained to me that the company sergeant-major was a far more dangerous man than the Russians, and that I had been posted to prevent surprise from him. That afternoon, however, I was able to retrieve my reputation. We advanced a little, dug ourselves in again, and all went off to sleep leaving me as sentry, and I was just able to wake them in time to receive the lieutenant commanding the company. At last, one night the Russians made a surprise attack and caught us in our sleep. There are all sorts of questions connected with this surprise I should like answered. Theoretically our arrangements made such things impossible. We had patrols all night long in No Man’s Land, we had outposts half a mile from billets, and we had patrols whose only business was to go from sentry to sentry and collect news. Finally, there was a sentry posted at the billets who ought to have given the alarm if he heard firing going on. The old regiment which marched out in August, 1914, would not have allowed itself to be caught napping so badly. It could only have happened to a regiment of recruits. By the last thing I saw of the sergeant-major, it seemed he had lost his head for once. Instead of organizing the defence, he was screaming with fury at the sentry for letting the Russians in upon us, all the while busily kicking him fore and aft.

For myself, I plunged in the direction of the firing, when suddenly the earth to my left seemed to become alive with flame. To my excited senses it appeared that a whole regiment was firing at point-blank range at me alone. We were in a country of low sand-dunes; I tried to run, but the sand hindered my steps, and the volleys of fire still pursued me. Russian rifles fire much too high, so the bullets went over my head, but I had no time to think of that. I plumped down and shammed dead. The firing stopped at once. Then I made a sudden start, got a little way, and then managed to get over the crest of the dune into the valley below. In a minute or two the same thing had to be repeated all over again. The Russians seemed to be everywhere. I can well believe the huntsmen who say the fox enjoys being hunted. I really did enjoy this crowded hour of glorious life. All my faculties were stretched with the one endeavour to escape. Of consequences to myself I did not think. That part of me that could think was simply the spectator at a particularly thrilling drama. At last I met a corporal who gave me instructions to proceed in a certain direction. I went as he instructed me, and I saw in the distance dim shadowy figures moving. I hailed them, they stopped, I approached, and found myself before a party of Russian soldiers. They grinned and made me welcome. A few minutes later a burst of loud cheering announced that the Russians had taken our position by storm.