Let them eat gas

[alice wellintown]

Although we need reinforcement, the recruits give us almost more trouble
than they are worth. They are helpless in this grim fighting area,
they fall like flies.
Modern trench-warfare demands knowledge and experience; a man must have a
feeling for the contours of the ground, an ear for the sound and
character of the
shells, must be able to decide beforehand where they will drop, how
they will burst,
and how to shelter from them.
The young recruits of course know none of these things. They get killed
simply because they hardly can tell shrapnel from high-explosive, they are mown
down because they are listening anxiously to the roar of the big
coal-boxes falling
in the rear, and miss the light, piping whistle of the low spreading
daisy-cutters.
They flock together like sheep instead of scattering, and even the wounded are
shot down like hares by the airmen.
Their pale turnip faces, their pitiful clenched hands, the fine courage of these
poor devils, the desperate charges and attacks made by the poor brave wretches,
who are so terrified that they dare not cry out loudly, but with
battered chests, with
torn bellies, arms and legs only whimper softly for their mothers and
cease as soon
as one looks at them.
Their sharp, downy, dead faces have the awful expressionlessness of dead
children.
It brings a lump into the throat to see how they go over, and run and fall. A
man would like to spank them, they are so stupid, and to take them by
the arm and
lead them away from here where they have no business to be. They wear grey
coats and trousers and boots, but for most of them the uniform is far
too big, it
hangs on their limbs, their shoulders are too narrow, their bodies too
slight; no
uniform was ever made to these childish measurements.
Between five and ten recruits fall to every old hand.
A surprise gas-attack carries off a lot of them. They have not yet learned what
to do. We found one dug-out full of them, with blue heads and black
lips. Some of
them in a shell hole took off their masks too soon; they did not know
that the gas
lies longest in the hollows; when they saw others on top without masks
they pulled
theirs off too and swallowed enough to scorch their lungs.
Their condition is hopeless, they choke to death with haemorrhages and
suffocation.
In one part of the trench I suddenly run into Himmelstoss. We dive into the same
dug-out. Breathless we are all lying one beside the other waiting for
the charge.
When we run out again, although I am very excited, I suddenly think: "Where's
Himmelstoss?" Quickly I jump back into the dug-out and find him with a small
scratch lying in a corner pretending to be wounded. His face looks
sullen. He is in a
panic; he is new to it too. But it makes me mad that the young
recruits should be out
there and he here.
"Get out!" I spit.
He does not stir, his lips quiver, his moustache twitches.
"Out!" I repeat.
He draws up his legs, crouches back against the wall, and shows his teeth
like a cur.
I seize him by the arm and try to pull him up. He barks.
That is too much for me. I grab him by the neck and shake him like a sack, his
head jerks from side to side.
"You lump, will you get out--you hound, you skunk, sneak out of it, would
you?" His eye becomes glassy, I knock his head against the wall--"You
cow"--I kick
him in the ribs--"You swine"--I push him toward the door and shove him out head
first.
Another wave of our attack has just come up. A lieutenant is with them. He
sees us and yells: "Forward, forward, join in, follow." And the word of command
does what all my banging could not. Himmelstoss hears the order, looks round him
as if awakened, and follows on.
I come after and watch him go over. Once more he is the smart Himmelstoss
of the parade-ground, he has even outstripped the lieutenant and is far ahead.
Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns,
handgrenades--
words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.
Our faces are encrusted, our thoughts are devastated, we are weary to death;
when the attack comes we shall have to strike many of the men with our fists to
waken them and make them come with us--our eyes are burnt, our hands are torn,
our knees bleed, our elbows are raw.
How long has it been? Weeks--months--years? Only days. We see time pass
in the colourless faces of the dying, we cram food into us, we run, we throw, we
shoot, we kill, we lie about, we are feeble and spent, and nothing
supports us but
the knowledge that there are still feebler, still more spent, still
more helpless ones
there who, with staring eyes, look upon us as gods that escape death many times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMFlupHV6Rs