War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans

Author:Stefan Hertmans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-09T04:00:00+00:00

2

These days, it is almost impossible to imagine the desolation of the landscape through which I marched with my eight new comrades from the third battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the Line. Near Boortmeerbeek, the two gendarmes who were escorting us slunk away, one after the other. The first one came to me and said with a smirk that he had sprained his foot, and a mile farther on, the second one frankly admitted that he was scared, because a man on horseback makes an easier target than an infantryman. I didn’t waste any words on them, but made it clear with a wave of my hand that they could do as they liked. We continued our cautious advance. I had to remind my men to keep zigzagging, like hares in an open field. German scouts had been spotted near our advance posts. My mind was racing, and I had to make split-second decisions that could mean the difference between life and death. We crossed Leuvensesteenweg and struck out toward Kampenhout in the southwest. From the discarded objects that littered the ground, I could see that our troops had marched past in the wrong direction. Confusion and panic reigned. In the woods of Schiplaken, where the beauty of the summer trees and bushes made me wish I could stop and sketch them, we passed a pool with a lancer’s blue coat beside it, thrown off next to a yellow sandbank. From a distance, I thought at first that it was a soldier with his gun raised. Instinctively, I aimed my rifle, but it was only a sleeve outstretched on the ground. The image leaped to mind of the heap of blue-and-white clothes next to the pool at Port Arthur, barely a month earlier. It seemed like ages ago, a scene from another world that had slipped away from us in only a few days.

We marched deeper into the sheltering woods. Night fell. In the dusk, it was harder for us to advance. We would have to stop before Kampenhout. The earth all around us was covered with what looked like lead marbles, the remains of fragments from a high-explosive shell, which told us that these woods had seen combat. Now and then, a shell hit the ground less than one hundred yards away. The earth shook; we saw soil spurt into the air, trees fall groaning to the ground. Sometimes we heard distant cries. We crept on through the darkening twilight. The gunfire seemed to grow louder and closer. We halted at the prearranged spot. There was our regiment’s wagon—God knows where it had come from. I ordered my men to set up their rifles in bundles, with two sentries to the east. I made my report. A few officers arrived in silence, leading their horses by the reins. We all got bread and cheese for supper. A little later, another commando unit arrived. To my surprise, I recognized my cousin René among the soldiers—the second son of my uncle Evarist, whose first son I had seen die in the flames of the furnace.

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