A Note on the War - Ernst Jünger

"The French shoot very well, especially the English heavy [motor] guns. When our guns fire, it causes noise on the other side, from five or six different angles. I have seen through the optics our shells explode in the village. There is a fabled artillery piece next to us whose job it is to direct enemy fire at it. All the spokes and everything else were destroyed. As soon as the artillerymen have fired a shot they are gone. It is said that the lieutenant has already been knocked down several times by the pressure of a shell, and once an unexploded shell passed between his legs. Yesterday I was with a comrade at the observation post. From the trench there was a narrow corridor about 100 metres long, 50 metres in front of us lay the French killed in the last assault. It was strange to see figures in red trousers and blue dressing gowns lying down or with their knees bent. The faces already looked black, which I noticed with the optics. Strange, these dead men who stay in the fields for months. At first they huddled together, but the next ones had already been buried a bit by us during the night. Some of them are just green patches of grass now. While I was looking at them someone fired a shot from the other side, not very far away from us. I couldn't deny myself the satisfaction of shooting at the edge of the enemy trench."