The Road Back Read Free

"direct hit! clean gone."
    It crashes down once more, it pelts, roars, rains down mud and steel; the air thunders, the earth groans; the curtain of fire lifts again, slides back; at the same instant men arise, seared, black out of the earth, bombs in their hands, watching, ready. "Slowly back!" shouts Heel.
    The attack lies on our left front. There is a fight for a machine-gun post in a shell-hole. The machine-gun is barking. The flashes of hand-grenades leap convulsively. Suddenly the gun is silent. A stoppage. Immediately the post is outflanked. A couple of minutes and it must be taken. Heel sees it. "Damn!" He goes over the parapet. "Forward!" Ammunition is tossed up and we go up after it. Soon Willy, Bethke, and Heel are lying within throwing distance, and throw. Heel jumps up again—he is stark mad at such moments—a perfect fiend. But it succeeds—the fellows in the shell-hole take new heart, the machine-gun comes again into action. Contact is made, and together we make a dash for the concrete pill-box behind us. It has all happened so quickly that the Tommies have not even realised that the post has been evacuated. Flashes continue to burst in the abandoned crater.
    It grows quieter. I am anxious about Ludwig. But he is there. Then Bethke crawls in. "Wessling?"
    "What's Wessling doing?" "Where's Wessling?"—the cry goes up suddenly above the dull rumble of the long- range guns. "Wessling—Wessling "
    Heel appears. "What is it?"
    "Wessling's missing."
    Tjaden had been beside him when the word came to retire, after that he had not seen him again. "Where?" asks Kosole. Tjaden points. "Damn!" Kosole looks at Bethke. Bethke at Kosole. Each knows that this is perhaps our last fight. They do not hesitate. "Right for me," growls Bethke.
    "Come on," grants Kosole. They vanish into the darkness. Heel goes out after them.
    Ludwig puts all in readiness to charge immediately should the three be attacked. At first all remains quiet. Then suddenly there are flashes of bombs. Revolver shots crack between. We go forward immediately, Ludwig leading—then the sweating faces of Bethke and Kosole reappear lugging someone behind them in a waterproof.
    Heel? It is Wessling who groans. And Heel? Holding them off; it was he that fired. He is back again almost immediately—"Got the whole bunch in the shell-hole," he shouts, "and then two with the revolver."—He stares down at Wessling. "Well, how is it?" But Wessling does not answer.
    His belly lies open like a butcher's stall. One cannot see how deep the wounds go. We bandage them as well as we can. Wessling is groaning for water, but he gets none. Stomach-wounds may not drink. Then he begs for blankets. He is freezing, he has lost so much blood.
    A runner brings the order to retire still farther. We take Wessling with us in a waterproof-sheet through which is passed a rifle for carrying, until we can find a stretcher. One behind the other we grope our way cautiously. It grows gradually light. Silver mist in the low bushes. We are leaving the fighting zone. Already we imagine it over when a bullet comes swishing up softly and strikes, tock. Ludwig silently rolls up his sleeve. He has stopped one in the arm. Weil bandages him.
    We go back. And back.
    The air is mild as wine. This is no November, it is March; and the sky pale blue and clear. In the pools along the road the sun lies mirrored. We pass down an avenue of poplars. The trees stand on either side the road, tall and almost unscathed, except that here and there one is missing. This region lay formerly well behind the lines and has not been so devastated as those miles before it, that day by day, yard by yard, we have yielded. The sun glints on the brown waterproof, and as we go along the yellow avenue, leaves keep floating, sailing down upon it; a few fall inside it.
    At the dressing-station everywhere is full. Many of the wounded are lying outside before the door. For the time being we put Wessling there too.
    A number of