Chapter 6 Quiz

We recognise the smooth distorted faces, the helmets: they are _________. They have already suffered heavily when they reach the remnants of the barbed wire entanglements. A whole line has gone down before our machine-guns; then we have a lot of stoppages and they come nearer. I see one of them, his face upturned, fall into a wire cradle. His body collapses, his hands remain suspended as though he were _____________. Then his body drops clean away and only his hands with the stumps of his arms, shot off, now hang in the wire.

French, praying

A young _____________ lags behind, he is overtaken, he puts up his hands, in one he still holds his ___________--does he mean to shoot or to give himself!--a blow from a -________ cleaves through his face. A second sees it and tries to run farther; a ____________ jabs into his back. He leaps in the air, his arms thrown wide, his mouth wide open, yelling; he staggers, in his back the bayonet quivers. A third ________ away his rifle, cowers down with his hands before his eyes. He is left behind with a few other prisoners to carry off the wounded.

Frenchman, revolver, spade, bayonet, throws

How many soldiers are left once relieved in the Second Company?

32

The wire entanglements are torn to pieces. Yet they offer some obstacle. We see the stormtroops coming. Our artillery opens fire. Machine-guns rattle, rifles crack. The charge works its way across. Haie and Kropp begin with the hand-grenades. They throw as fast as they can, others pass them, the handles with the strings already pulled. Haie throws ______ yards, Kropp _______, it has been measured, the distance is important. The enemy as they run cannot do much before they are within ______ yards.

75, 60, 40

During the day we loaf about and make war on the rats. Ammunition and hand-grenades become more plentiful. We overhaul the __________--that is to say, the ones that have a _____ on the blunt edge. If the fellows over there catch a man with one of those he's killed at sight. In the next sector some of our men were found whose ________ were cut off and their ________ poked out with their own saw-bayonets. Their mouths and noses were stuffed with ________ so that they suffocated. Some of the recruits have bayonets of this sort; we take them away and give them the ordinary kind.

Bayonets, saw, noses, eyes, sawdust

But it miscarries. A second party goes out, and it also turns back. Finally Kat tries, and even he reappears without accomplishing anything. No one gets through, not even a fly is small enough to get through such a barrage. We pull in our _______ tighter and chew every mouthful ________ times as long. Still the food does not last out; we are damnably hungry. I take out a scrap of bread, eat the _________ and put the _______ back in my knapsack; from time to time I nibble at it. The night is unbearable. We cannot sleep, but stare ahead of us and doze. Tjaden regrets that we wasted the gnawed pieces of bread on the rats. We would gladly have them again to eat now. We are short of __________, too, but not seriously yet.

Belts, three, white, crust, water

The sky is blue and without clouds. In the evening it grows sultry and the heat rises from the earth. When the wind blows toward us it brings the smell of _________, which is very _______ and ________. This deathly exhalation from the shell-holes seems to be a mixture of __________ and ____________, and fills us with nausea and retching.

Blood, heavy, sweet, chloroform, putrefaction

We are so close on the heels of our retreating enemies that we reach it almost at the same time as they. In this way we suffer few casualties. A machine-gun barks, but is silenced with a ______. Nevertheless, the couple of seconds has sufficed to give us ________ stomach wounds. With the butt of his ______ ______ smashes to pulp the face of one of the unwounded machine-gunners. We _________ the others before they have time to get out their bombs. Then thirstily we drink the water they have for __________ the gun.

Bomb, five, rifle, kat, bayonet, cooling

But the bayonet has practically lost its importance. It is usually the fashion now to charge with ________ and __________ only. The sharpened spade is a more handy and many-sided weapon; not only can it be used for jabbing a man under the ______, but it is much better for striking with because of its greater ___________; and if one hits between the neck and shoulder it easily cleaves as far down as the _______. The bayonet frequently _______ on the thrust and then a man has to kick hard on the other fellow's belly to pull it out again; and in the interval he may easily get one himself. And what's more the blade often gets __________ off.

Bombs, spades, chin, weight, chest, jams, broken

We must look out for our ________. The ______ have become much more ____________ lately because the trenches are no longer in good condition. Detering says it is a sure sign of a coming ________________. The rats here are particularly repulsive, they are so fat--the kind we all call __________-rats. They have shocking, evil, naked faces, and it is nauseating to see their long, nude tails. They seem to be mighty hungry. Almost every man has had his bread gnawed. _______ wrapped his in his _________________ sheet and put it under his head, but he cannot sleep because they run over his face to get at it. ___________ meant to outwit them: he fastened a thin _______ to the roof and suspended his bread from it. During the night when he switched on his ___________ ________he saw the wire swing to and fro. On the bread was riding a fat rat.

Bread, rats, numerous, bombardment, corpse, Kropp, waterproof, detering, wire, pocket torch

It is strange that all the memories that come have these two qualities. They are always completely ______, that is predominant in them; and even if they are not really ________, they become so. They are __________ apparitions that speak to me, with looks and gestures silently, without any word--and it is the alarm of their silence that forces me to lay hold of my sleeve and my rifle lest I should abandon myself to the liberation and allurement in which my body would dilate and gently pass away into the still forces that lie behind these things.

Calm, soundless,

The nights become quiet and the hunt for __________ _________-_________ and the _________ ____________ of the French _____-shells begins. Why the driving-bands are so desirable no one knows exactly. The collectors merely assert that they are valuable. Some have collected so many that they will stoop under the weight of them when we go back.

Copper driving bands, silken parachutes, star

The ___________ _______ over there is famous along the whole front. Occasionally it has been the chief reason for a flying ______ on our part, for our nourishment is generally very bad; we have a constant hunger. We bagged ______ tins altogether. The fellows over there are well looked after; they fare magnificently, as against us, poor starving wretches, with our __________ jam; they can get all the ________ they want. -______ has scored a thin loaf of white French -_________, and stuck it in behind his _______ like a spade. It is a bit -_________ at one corner, but that can be cut off. It is a good thing we have something decent to eat at last; we still have a use for all our strength. Enough to eat is just as valuable as a good dugout; it can save our lives; that is the reason we are so greedy for it. __________ has captured _____ water-bottles full of _____________. We pass them round.

Corned beef, raid, five, turnip, meat, haie, bread, belt, bloody, tjaden, two, cognac

A ____________ creeps in; he has a loaf of _________ with him. _________ people have had the luck to get through during the night and bring some ____________. They say the bombardment extends undiminished as far as the __________ ________. It is a mystery where the enemy gets all his shells. We wait and wait. By midday what I expected happens. One of the recruits has a fit. I have been watching him for a long time, grinding his ____________ and opening and shutting his ________. These hunted, protruding ________, we know them too well. During the last few hours he has had merely the appearance of calm. He had collapsed like a rotten tree.

Corporal, bread, three, provisions, artillery lines, teeth, fists, eyes

"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 _____. I seize him by the arm and try to pull him up. He _______. 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 _______, will you get out--you _______, you -______, sneak out of it, would you?" His eye becomes glassy, I knock his ______ against the wall--"You ______"--I kick him in the _______--"You ________"--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 ___________ does what all my banging could not. Himmelstoss hears the order, looks round him as if awakened, and follows on.

Cur, barks, lump, hound, skunk, head, cow, ribs, swine, command

A surprise ______-attack carries off a lot of them. They have not yet learned what to do. We found one dug-out full of them, with ______ heads and ________ 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 ____________; 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 ____________________ and ________________.

Gas, blue, black, hollows, hemorrhages, suffocation

At night they send over ______. We expect the attack to follow and lie with our masks on, ready to tear them off as soon as the first ___________ appears. Dawn approaches without anything happening--only the everlasting, nerve-wracking roll behind the enemy lines, trains, trains, lorries, lorries; but what are they concentrating? Our artillery fires on it continually, but still it does not cease.

Gas, shadow

Next day there was an issue of ___________ cheese. Each man gets almost a __________ of a cheese. In one way that is all to the good, for Edamer is tasty--but in another way it is vile, because the fat _____ balls have long been a sign of a bad time coming. Our forebodings increase as ______ is served out. We drink it of course; but are not greatly comforted.

Edamer, quarter, red, rum

The attack does not come, but the bombardment continues. We are gradually benumbed. Hardly a man speaks. We cannot make ourselves understood. Our trench is almost gone. At many places it is only ____________ inches high, it is broken by holes, and craters, and mountains of earth. A shell lands square in front of our post. At once it is dark. We are buried and must dig ourselves out. After an hour the entrance is clear again, and we are calmer because we have had something to do.

Eighteen

_______ ____________ drags off with a great wound in his back through which the _________ pulses at every breath. I can only press his hand; "It's all up, Paul," he groans and he ________ his arm because of the pain. We see men living with their ________ blown open; we see soldiers run with their two ________ cut off, they stagger on their splintered stumps into the next shell-hole; a ________-__________ crawls a -________ and a ________ on his hands dragging his smashed ________ after him; another goes to the dressing station and over his clasped hands bulge his ____________; we see men without ________, without ________, without _________; we find one man who has held the ______ of his arm in his _______ for ______ hours in order not to bleed to death. The sun goes down, night comes, the shells whine, life is at an end.

Haie westhus, lung, bites, skulls, feet, lance corporal, mile, half, knee, intestines, mouths, jaws, faces, artery, teeth, two

But _______ at least gives a reason. He intends to give them to his girl to supplement her __________. At this the __________ explode with mirth. They slap their knees: "By Jove though, he's a wit, Haie is, he's got brains." Tjaden especially can hardly contain himself; he takes the largest of the rings in his hand and every now and then puts his leg through it to show how much slack there is. "Haie, man, she must have legs like, legs--" his thoughts mount somewhat higher "and a behind too she must have, like a--like an ____________!" He cannot get over it. "I wish I could play hot-hand with her once, my hat--" Haie beams, proud that his girl should receive so much appreciation. "She's a nice bit," he says with self-satisfaction.

Haie, garters, friesians, elephant

Everywhere wire-cutters are snapping, planks are thrown across the entanglements, we jump through the narrow entrances into the trenches. ______ strikes his spade into the neck of a -___________ Frenchman and throws the ______ hand-grenade; we duck behind a breastwork for a few seconds, then the straight bit of trench ahead of us is empty. The next throw whizzes obliquely over the corner and clears a passage; as we run past we toss handfuls down into the dug-outs, the earth shudders, it crashes, smokes and groans, we stumble over slippery lumps of flesh, over yielding bodies; I fall into an open _______ on which lies a clean, new officer's cap.

Haie, gigantic, first, belly

The first recruit seems actually to have gone insane. He butts his ___________ against the wall like a ________. We must try to-night to take him to the rear. Meanwhile we _________ him, but in such a way that in case of attack he can be released at once. Kat suggests a game of ______: it is easier when a man has something to do. But it is no use, we listen for every explosion that comes close, miscount the tricks, and fail to follow suit. We have to give it up. We sit as though in a boiler that is being belaboured from without on all sides.

Head, goat, bind, skat

It is easy to understand what he cries. At first he called only for ______--the second night he must have had some delirium, he talked with his wife and his children, we often detected the name ________. To-day he merely weeps. By evening the voice dwindles to a croaking. But it persists still through the whole night. We hear it so distinctly because the wind blows toward our line. In the morning when we suppose he must already have long gone to his rest, there comes across to us one last gurgling rattle. The days are hot and the dead lie unburied. We cannot fetch them all in, if we did we should not know what to do with them. The shells will bury them. Many have their _________ swollen up like balloons. They hiss, belch, and make movements. The gases in them make _________.

Help, Elise, bellies, noises

Though he raves and his eyes roll, it can't be helped, we have to give him a ___________ to bring him to his senses. We do it quickly and mercilessly, and at last he sits down quietly. The others have turned pale; let's hope it deters them. This bombardment is too much for the poor devils, they have been sent straight from a recruiting-depot into a barrage that is enough to turn an old soldier's hair grey. After this affair the sticky, close atmosphere works more than ever on our nerves. We sit as if in our graves waiting only to be closed in.

Hiding

In one part of the trench I suddenly run into _________________. 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 -_____________. 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.

Himmelstoss, wounded

Now he stands up, stealthily creeps across the floor hesitates a moment and then glides towards the door. I intercept him and say: "Where are you going?" "I'll be back in a minute," says he, and tries to push past me. "Wait a bit, the shelling will stop soon." He listens for a moment and his eyes become clear. Then again he has the glowering eyes of a mad dog, he is silent, he shoves me aside. "One minute, lad," I say. ______ notices. Just as the recruit shakes me off Kat jumps in and we hold him. Then he begins to rave: "Leave me alone, let me go out, I will go out!" He won't listen to anything and hits out, his mouth is wet and pours out words, half choked, meaningless words. It is a case of ________________, he feels as though he is suffocating here and wants to get out at any price. If we let him go he would run about everywhere regardless of cover. He is not the first.

Kat, claustrofobia,

My hands grow cold and my flesh creeps; and yet the night is warm. Only the _______ is cold, this mysterious mist that trails over the dead and sucks from them their last, creeping life. By morning they will be _______ and _______ and their blood _____________ and ________. Still the parachute-rockets shoot up and cast their pitiless light over the stony landscape, which is full of craters and frozen lights like a moon. The blood beneath my skin brings fear and restlessness into my thoughts. They become feeble and tremble, they want warmth and life. They cannot persist without solace, without illusion, they are disordered before the naked picture of despair. I hear the rattle of the mess-tins and immediately feel a strong desire for _______ food; it would do me good and comfort me. Painfully I force myself to wait until I am relieved. Then I go into the dug-out and find a mug of __________. It is cooked in ______ and tastes good, I eat it slowly. I remain quiet, though the others are in a better mood, for the shelling has died down.

Mist, pale, green, congealed, black, warm, barley, fat,

We have a spell from the rats in the trench. They are in _____ _______ _______--we know what for. They grow fat; when we see one we have a crack at it. At night we hear again the rolling behind the enemy lines. All day we have only the normal shelling, so that we are able to ________ the trenches. There is always plenty of amusement, the airmen see to that. There are countless ________ for us to watch every day.

No mans land, repair, fights

It is nearly _________. The sun blazes hotly, the sweat stings in our eyes, we wipe it off on our sleeves and often blood with it. At last we reach a trench that is in a somewhat better condition. It is manned and ready for the counter-attack, it receives us. Our guns open in full blast and cut off the enemy attack. The lines behind us stop. They can advance no farther. The attack is crushed by our ___________. We watch. The fire lifts a _______________ yards and we break forward. Beside me a _________-_________ has his ______ torn off. He runs a few steps more while the blood spouts from his ______ like a fountain. It does not come quite to hand-to-hand fighting; they are driven back. We arrive once again at our shattered trench and pass on beyond it.

Noon, artillery, hundred, lance corporal, head, neck

All day the sky is hung with ______________ ____________. There is a rumour that the enemy are going to put ________ over and use _____-flying planes for the attack. But that interests us less than what we hear of the new __________-______________. We wake up in the middle of the night. The earth booms. Heavy fire is falling on us. We crouch into corners. We distinguish shells of every calibre. Each man lays hold of his things and looks again every minute to reassure himself that they are still there. The dug-out heaves, the night roars and flashes. We look at each other in the momentary flashes of light, and with pale faces and pressed lips shake our heads.

Observation balloons, tanks, low, flame throwers

Battle planes don't trouble us, but the _______________ ___________ we hate like the plague; they put the artillery on to us. A few minutes after they appear, _________ and high-__________ begin to drop on us. We lose _________ men in one day that way, and _______ of them stretcher-bearers. _______ are smashed so that Tjaden remarks you could scrape them off the wall of the trench with a spoon and bury them in a _____-_____. Another has the lower part of his body and his legs torn off. Dead, his chest leans against the side of the trench, his face is __________-yellow, in his beard still burns a ____________. It glows until it dies out on his lips. We put the dead in a large ______-________. So far there are _______ layers, one on top of the other.

Observation planes, shrapnel, explosives, eleven, five, two, mess-tin, lemon, cigarette, shell-hole, three

My strength is exhausted as always after an attack, and so it is hard for me to be alone with my thoughts. They are not properly thoughts; they are memories which in my weakness haunt me and strangely move me. The ____________-lights soar upwards--and I see a picture, a ____________ evening, I am in the ___________ ___________ and look at the tall _______ trees that bloom in the middle of the little cloister garden where the _________ lie buried. Around the walls are the _______ carvings of the _______________ of the _______. No one is there. A great quietness rules in this blossoming quadrangle, the sun lies warm on the heavy grey stones, I place my hand upon them and feel the warmth. At the right-hand corner the ______ cathedral spire ascends into the pale blue sky of the evening. Between the glowing columns of the cloister is the cool darkness that only churches have, and I stand there and wonder whether, when I am twenty, I shall have experienced the bewildering emotions of ______.

Parachute, summer, cathedral cloister, rose, monks, stone, stations, cross, green, love

There are rumours of an _________. We go up to the front ____ days earlier than usual. On the way we pass a shelled ________ _________. Stacked up against its longer side is a high __________ wall of yellow, unpolished, brand-new ___________. They still smell of _______, and _____, and the ______. There are at least a hundred. "That's a good preparation for the offensive," says Müller astonished. "They're for us," growls Detering. "Don't talk rot," says Kat to him angrily. "You be thankful if you get so much as a coffin," grins Tjaden, "they'll slip you a ___________ ________ for your old Aunt Sally of a carcase." The others jest too, unpleasant jests, but what else can a man do?--The coffins are really for us. The organisation surpasses itself in that kind of thing.

Offensive, two, school-house, double, coffins, resin, pine, forest, water proof sheet

Every man is aware of the heavy shells tearing down the ___________, rooting up the embankment and demolishing the upper layers of concrete. When a shell lands in the trench we note how the hollow, furious blast is like a blow from the paw of a raging beast of prey. Already by morning a few of the recruits are _______ and ____________. They are too inexperienced. Slowly the grey light trickles into the post and pales the flashes of the shells. Morning is come. The explosion of mines mingles with the gunfire. That is the most dementing convulsion of all. The whole region where they go up becomes one grave.

Parapet, green, vomiting

Between the meadows behind our town there stands a line of old _________ by a stream. They were visible from a great distance, and although they grew on _____ bank only, we called them the __________ -__________. Even as children we had a great love for them, they drew us vaguely thither, we played __________ the whole day by them and listened to their rustling. We sat beneath them on the bank of the stream and let our feet hang in the bright, swift waters. The pure fragrance of the water and the melody of the wind in the poplars held our fancies. We loved them dearly, and the image of those days still makes my heart pause in its beating.

Poplars, one, poplar avenue, truant

No sooner do we know this than we dive into the nearest dug-outs, and with the utmost haste seize on whatever ____________ we can see, especially the tins of ___________ -________ and ___________, before we clear out.

Provisions, corned beef, butter

Towards morning, while it is still dark, there is some excitement. Through the entrance rushes in a swarm of fleeing _____ that try to storm the walls. Torches light up the confusion. Everyone yells and curses and slaughters. The madness and despair of many hours unloads itself in this outburst. Faces are distorted, arms strike out, the beasts scream; we just stop in time to avoid attacking one another. The onslaught has exhausted us. We lie down to wait again. It is a marvel that our post has had no casualties so far. It is one of the _______ deep dug-outs.

Rats, less

Attack, counter-attack, charge, repulse--these are words, but what things they signify! We have lost a good many men, mostly __________. Reinforcements have again been sent up to our sector. They are one of the ______ regiments, composed almost entirely of _______ fellows just called up. They have had hardly any training, and are sent into the field with only a _________________ knowledge. They do know what a hand-grenade is, it is true, but they have very little idea of cover, and what is most important of all, have no eye for it. A fold in the ground has to be quite ____________ inches high before they can see it.

Recruits, new, young, theoretical knowledge, eighteen

The ___________ go out, the observers stagger in, covered with dirt, and trembling. One lies down in silence in the corner and eats, the other, an older man of the new draught, sobs; ________ he has been flung over the parapet by the blast of the explosions without getting any more than shellshock. The recruits are eyeing him. We must watch them, these things are catching, already some _____ begin to quiver. It is good that it is growing daylight; perhaps the attack will come before noon. The bombardment does not diminish. It is falling in the rear too. As far as one can see spout fountains of mud and iron. A wide belt is being raked.

Reliefs, twice, lips

The front is a cage in which we must await fearfully whatever may happen. We lie under the network of arching shells and live in a suspense of uncertainty. Over us Chance hovers. If a shot comes, we can duck, that is all; we neither know nor can determine where it will fall. It is this Chance that makes us indifferent. A few months ago I was sitting in a dug-out playing ______; after a while I stood up and went to visit some friends in another dug-out. On my return nothing more was to be seen of the first one, it had been blown to pieces by a direct hit. I went back to the second and arrived just in time to lend a hand digging it out. In the interval it had been buried. It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit. In a bombproof dug-out I may be smashed to atoms and in the open may survive _____ hours' bombardment unscathed. No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.

Skat, ten

We have tired faces and avoid each other's eyes. "It will be like the __________," says Kat gloomily. "There we were shelled steadily for __________ days and nights." Kat has lost all his fun since we have been here, which is bad, for Kat is an old front-hog, and can smell what is coming. Only _________ seems pleased with the good ___________ and the ________; he thinks we might even go back to rest without anything happening at all. It almost looks like it. Day after day passes. At night I squat in the listening-post. Above me the rockets and parachute-lights shoot up and float down again. I am cautious and tense, my heart thumps. My eyes turn again and again to the luminous dial of my watch; the hands will not budge. Sleep hangs on my eyelids, I work my ________ in my boots in order to keep awake. Nothing happens till I am relieved;--only the everlasting rolling over there. Gradually we grow calmer and play ________ and _________ continually. Perhaps we will be lucky

Somme, seven, tjaden, rations, rum, toes, skat, poker

At last we put a stop to it. We cannot afford to throw the bread away, because then we should have nothing left to eat in the morning, so we carefully cut off the bits of bread that the animals have gnawed. The slices we cut off are heaped together in the middle of the floor. Each man takes out his _______ and lies down prepared to strike. __________, _________, and ________ hold their __________-_________ready. After a few minutes we hear the first shuffling and tugging. It grows, now it is the sound of many little feet. Then the torches switch on and every man strikes at the heap, which scatters with a rush. The result is good. We toss the bits of rat over the parapet and again lie in wait. Several times we repeat the process. At last the beasts get wise to it, or perhaps they have scented the blood. They return no more. Nevertheless, before morning the remainder of the bread on the floor has been carried off. In the adjoining sector they attacked _____ large _____ and a _______, bit them to death and devoured them

Spade, detering, kropp, Kaye, pocket torches, two, cats, dog

It brings a lump into the throat to see how they go over, and run and fall. A man would like to _______ 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 ______ coats and trousers and boots, but for most of them the uniform is far too _______, it hangs on their limbs, their shoulders are too narrow, their bodies too slight; no uniform was ever made to these childish measurements. Between _____ and ____ recruits fall to every old hand.

Spank, grey, big, five, ten

Suddenly the nearer explosions cease. The shelling continues but it has lifted and falls behind us, our trench is free. We seize the hand-grenades, pitch them out in front of the dug-out and jump after them. The bombardment has stopped and a heavy barrage now falls behind us. The attack has come. No one would believe that in this howling waste there could still be men; but _________ helmets now appear on all sides out of the trench, and ________ yards from us a ______________-_______ is already in position and barking.

Steel, fifty, machine gun

Their __________ is the reason why these memories of former times do not awaken desire so much as sorrow--a vast, inapprehensible ___________. Once we had such desires--but they return not. They are past, they belong to another world that is gone from us. In the __________ they called forth a rebellious, wild craving for their return; for then they were still bound to us, we belonged to them and they to us, even though we were already absent from them. They appeared in the soldiers' songs which we sang as we marched between the glow of the dawn and the black silhouettes of the forests to drill on the moor, they were a powerful remembrance that was in us and came from us. We are forlorn like _________, and experienced like ____ men, we are _________ and _____________ and ____________--I believe we are ______.

Stillness, melancholy, barracks, children, old, crude, sorrowful, superficial, lost

Suddenly it howls and flashes terrifically, the dug-out cracks in all its joints under a direct hit, fortunately only a light one that the concrete blocks are able to withstand. It rings metallically, the walls reel, rifles, helmets, earth, mud, and dust fly everywhere. __________ fumes pour in. If we were in one of those light dug-outs that they have been building lately instead of this deeper one, none of us would be alive. But the effect is bad enough even so. The recruit starts to rave again and ______ others follow suit. _____ jumps up and rushes out, we have trouble with the other two. I start after the one who escapes and wonder whether to shoot him in the leg--then it shrieks again, I fling myself down and when I stand up the wall of the trench is plastered with smoking splinters, lumps of flesh, and bits of uniform. I scramble back.

Sulphur, two, one,

We have just been relieved. The wheels roll beneath us, we stand dully, and when the call "Mind-- wire" comes, we bend our knees. It was ______________ when we came up, the trees were still green, now it is _____________ and the night is grey and wet. The lorries stop, we climb out--a confused heap, a remnant of many names. On either side stand people, dark, calling out the numbers of the brigades, the battalions. And at each call a little group separates itself off, a small handful of dirty, pallid soldiers, a dreadfully small handful, and a dreadfully small remnant. Now someone is calling the number of our company, it is, yes, the Company Commander, he has come through, then; his arm is in a ________. We go over to him and I recognise _____ and _________, we stand together, lean against each other, and look at one another.

Summer, autumn, sling, kat, Albert

Night again. We are deadened by the strain--a deadly___________ that scrapes along one's spine like a _____________ knife. Our legs refuse to move, our hands tremble, our bodies are a thin skin stretched painfully over repressed madness, over an almost irresistible, bursting roar. We have neither flesh nor muscles any longer, we dare not look at one another for fear of some incalculable thing. So we shut our teeth--it will end--it will end--perhaps we will come through.

Tension, gapped,

The moment we are about to retreat _________ faces rise up from the ground in front of us. Under one of the helmets a dark pointed _________ and two eyes that are fastened on me. I raise my hand, but I cannot throw into those strange eyes; for one moment the whole slaughter whirls like a circus round me, and these two eyes alone are motionless; then the head rises up, a hand, a movement, and my hand-grenade flies through the air and into him

Three, beard

The parachutes are turned to more practical uses. According to the size of the bust _______ or perhaps _______ will make a ________. Kropp and I use them as _______________. The others send them home. If the women could see at what risk these bits of rag are often obtained, they would be horrified. Kat surprises Tjaden endeavouring with perfect equanimity to knock the driving-band off a dud. If anyone else had tried it the thing would have ___________, but Tjaden always has his luck with him.

Three, four, blouse, handkerchiefs, exploded

He grows gradually hoarser. The voice is so strangely pitched that it seems to be everywhere. The first night some of our fellows go out _______ times to look for him. But when they think they have located him and crawl across, next time they hear the voice it seems to come from somewhere else altogether. We search in vain until dawn. We scrutinised the field all day with glasses, but discover nothing. On the _______ day the calls are fainter; that will be because his lips and mouth have become _____. Our Company Commander has promised next turn of leave with -_______ days extra to anyone who finds him. That is a powerful inducement, but we would do all that is possible without that for his cry is terrible. ______ and ________ even go out in the afternoon, and Albert gets the _______ of his ear shot off in consequence. It is to no purpose, they come back without him.

Three, second, dry, three, kat, kropp, lobe

Ahead of us everything is shimmering. The first night we try to get our bearings. When it is fairly quiet we can hear the transports behind the enemy lines rolling ceaselessly until dawn. Kat says that they do not go back but are bringing up troops--____________, ___________, and _______. The English artillery has been strengthened, that we can detect at once. There are at least ______ more __________ of ______-inch guns to the right of the farm, and behind the poplars they have put in __________-___________. Besides these they have brought up a number of those little _________ beasts with instantaneous _______. We are now in low spirits. After we have been in the dug-outs _______ hours our own shells begin to fall in the trench. This is the ________ time in __________ weeks. If it were simply a mistake in aim no one would say anything, but the truth is that the barrels are ________ out. The shots are often so uncertain that they land within our own lines. To-night ______ of our men were wounded by them

Troops, munitions, guns, four, batteries, nine, trench mortars, french, fuses, two, third, four, worn, two

Their pale _______ 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 __________ and cease as soon as one looks at them. Their sharp, downy, dead faces have the awful expressionlessness of dead _________.

Turnip, mothers, children

We are able to bring in most of the wounded that do not lie too far off. But many have long to wait and we listen to them dying. For one of them we search _______ days in vain. He must be lying on his _________ and unable to turn over. Otherwise it is hard to understand why we cannot find him; for it is only when a man has his mouth close to the ground that it is impossible to gauge the _________ of his cry. He must have been badly hit--one of those nasty wounds neither so severe that they exhaust the body at once and a man dreams on in a half-swoon, nor so light that a man endures the pain in the hope of becoming well again. Kat thinks he has either a broken -_______ or a shot through the ________. His -________ cannot have been injured otherwise he would not have such strength to cry out. And if it were any other kind of wound it would be possible to see him moving.

Two, belly, direction, pelvis, spine, chest

One morning ______ butterflies play in front of our trench. They are _____________-butterflies, with ______ spots on their _______ wings. What can they be looking for here? There is not a plant nor a flower for miles. They settle on the _________ of a skull. The birds too are just as carefree, they have long since accustomed themselves to the war. Every morning _______ ascend from _____ _______ _______. A year ago we watched them nesting; the young ones grew up too.

Two, brimstone, red, yellow, teeth, larks, no mans land

In the few hours of rest we teach them. "There, see that _________-_____? That's a mortar coming. Keep down, it will go clean over. But if it comes this way, then run for it. You can run from a mortar." We sharpen their ears to the malicious, hardly audible buzz of the smaller shells that are not easily distinguishable. They must pick them out from the general din by their insect-like hum--we explain to them that these are far more dangerous than the big ones that can be heard long beforehand. We show them how to take cover from aircraft, how to simulate a dead man when one is overrun in an attack, how to time hand-grenades so that they explode half a second before hitting the ground; we teach them to fling themselves into holes as quick as lightning before the shells with instantaneous fuses; we show them how to clean up a trench with a handful of bombs; we explain the difference between the fuse-length of the enemy bombs and our own; we put them wise to the sound of gas shells;--show them all the tricks that can save them from death. They listen, they are docile--but when it begins again, in their excitement they do everything ________.

Waggle top, mortar, wrong

We make for the rear, pull _______ _______________ into the trench and leave _______________ behind us with the strings pulled, which ensures us a fiery retreat. The machine-guns are already firing from the next position. We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death is hunting us down--now, for the first time in ___________ days we can see his face, now for the first time in three days we can oppose him; we feel a mad anger. No longer do we lie helpless, waiting on the scaffold, we can destroy and kill, to _________ ourselves, to save ourselves and to be ______________.

Wire cradles, bombs, three, save, revenged