The Diary of a U-boat Commander | Page 4

down in flames, it was like Lucifer
falling down from high heavens. The whole scene was enframed by a
sluggish line of observation balloons.
Sometimes groups of these would hastily sink to earth, to rise again
when the menace of the aeroplane had passed. These balloons seemed
more like phlegmatic spectators at some athletic contest than actual
participants in the events.
I wish my pen could convey to paper the varied impressions created
within my mind in the course of the past day; but it cannot. I have the
consolation that, though I think that I have considerable ability as a
writer, yet abler pens than mine have abandoned in despair the task of
describing a modern battle.
I can but reiterate that the dominant impression that remains is of the
mechanical nature of this business of modern war, and yet such an
impression is a false one, for as in the past so to-day, and so in the
future, it is the human element which is, has been, and will be the
foundation of all things.
Once only in the course of the day did I see men in any numbers, and
that was when at 3 p.m. the French were detected massing for a

counter-attack on the south side of the river. It was doomed to be
still-born. As they left their trenches, distant pigmy figures in horizon
blue, apparently plodding slowly across the ground, they were lashed
by an intensive barrage and the little figures were obliterated in a series
of spouting shell bursts.
Five minutes later the barrage ceased, the smoke drifted away and not a
man was to be seen. Grabel told me that it had probably cost them 750
casualties. What an amazing and efficient destruction of living
organism!
* * * * *
Another most interesting day, though of a different nature.
To-day was spent witnessing the arrangements for dealing with the
wounded. I spent the morning at an advanced dressing station on the
south bank of the river. It was in a cellar, beneath the ruins of a house,
about 400 yards from the front line and under heavy shell-fire, as close
at hand was the remains of what had been a wood, which was being
used as a concentration point for reserves.
The cover afforded by this so-called wood was extremely slight, and
the troops were concentrating for the innumerable attacks and
counter-attacks which were taking place under shell fire. This caused
the surgeon in charge of the cellar to describe the wood as our main
supply station!
I entered the cellar at 8 a.m., taking advantage of a partial lull in the
shelling, but a machine-gun bullet viciously flipped into a wooden
beam at the entrance as I ducked to go in. I was not sorry to get
underground. A sloping path brought me into the cellar, on one side of
which sappers were digging away the earth to increase the
accommodation.
The illumination consisted of candles set in bottles and some electric
hand lamps. The centre of the cellar was occupied by two portable
operating tables, rarely untenanted during the three hours I spent in this

hell.
The atmosphere--for there was no ventilation--stank of sweat, blood,
and chloroform.
By a powerful effort I countered my natural tendency to vomit, and
looked around me. The sides of the cellar were lined with figures on
stretchers. Some lay still and silent, others writhed and groaned. At
intervals, one of the attendants would call the doctor's attention to one
of the still forms. A hasty examination ensued, and the stretcher and its
contents were removed. A few minutes later the stretcher--
empty--returned. The surgeon explained to me that there was no room
for corpses in the cellar; business, he genially remarked, was too brisk
at the present crucial stage of the great battle.
The first feelings of revulsion having been mastered, I determined to
make the most of my opportunities, as I have always felt that the naval
officer is at a great disadvantage in war as compared with his military
brother, in that he but rarely has a chance of accustoming himself to the
unpleasant spectacle of torn flesh and bones.
This morning there was no lack of material, and many of the intestinal
wounds were peculiarly revolting, so that at lunch-time, when another
convenient lull in the torrent of shell fire enabled me to leave the cellar,
I felt thoroughly hardened; in fact I had assisted in a humble degree at
one or two operations.
I had lunch at the 11th Army Medical Headquarters Mess, and it was a
sumptuous meal to which I did full justice.
After lunch, whilst waiting to be motored to a field hospital, I happened
to see a battalion of Silesian troops about to go up to