This Month's Installment
The italicized part is what I'm unsure about.
The first skirmish at the border. A few more violent battles followed and were victories for the Germans. The parish hall and the lodge "For the Golden Key," both having made subject to their purpose with an astonishing rush, stept into action.The number of the wounded was only a few. Still, Else, because she was alone, had enough to do. But she carried out her work with the circumspection and composure that so far her feminine activity in all areas had been known for. Already her manner of dealing with the sick, this soft, calm, yet quite determined manner had a reassuring and easing effect on the people.Hans stood faithfully at her side. With more rigorous will power, he had made into reality the intention that he formed after Fritz's departure. In serious reckoning with himself, he had drawn a line behind a big part of his past life. The mentality with which he had until now consecrated his whole being was now only the root from which sprung the fruit: the deed. Only it was able to count.In the temporary military hospital of the association building, some activity was already taking shape. The lightly wounded sat upright in their beds, read or wrote short cards to their relatives; a few had even stood up, played cards or checkers and talkt enthusiastically about the political situation. To talk with them was an easy task, they were cheerful and, despite the first-rate care that was given to them here, were itching---142---only to come before the enemy again as soon as possible."Just let yourself get well, dear friend," Hans said to a sturdy cavalryman, who got a shot in the leg and limped on a crutch with difficulty, "in four weeks, if everything goes well, then you can go back into the field!""What!?" cried the man and lookt at him quite aghast. "I still have to wait four weeks? You can't be serious, Pastor!"But there were also already a few heavily wounded, who, groaning and often screaming because of the pains, writhed in their beds. Hans spoke with them in the light and pain-free moments and was glad for the bravery and the strength with which they took their sufferings for the Fatherland upon themselves.One especially stirred up his admiration. It was one not much younger infantry man from Berlin, named Adam, who had sustained a serious internal injury because of a piece of shrapnel and now had to lie the whole day in a tub full of warm running water.But he felt so well in his wet element and carried his suffering with such humor that from his side room he often talkt with the others in the large hall and he knew how to pick up and amuse even the dejected with just the right jokes. With his bald head, the thin, black moustache hanging down on both sides, the small, dripping eyes, and the exposed, short neck, he, sticking out of the tub covered with a brown towel, lookt like one of the mythical sea creatures and was christened "Nickelmann" by Else. Since then, no one called him anything else, and his little cell---143---was constantly packt with comrades to whom he proclaimed from his riverbed in philosophical composure his worldly wisdom and in his dry way encouraged comfort and courage.But he preferred to have with him the pastor, who "understood" him, as he said, the best, and with him he could have a little "more cultured" conversation than with the others.
Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary
In the phrase "A few more violent battles," "more" goes with "violent" to form a comparative adjective (in the original text, it's "heftigere"). It's "a few battles that were more violent," not "a few more battles that were violent."
I held back a few sentences from the next chapter so that what's above is the entirety of chapter twenty-nine.
