This Month's Installment
The italicized is what I'm unsure about.
Empty is the field, a desolate, ghastly---162---chaos. Trenches and entanglements shot to pieces, destroyed; paper, tins in them; now and then a weapon or a shattered part of it; even leather goods here and there. Stones, boards, remnants of walls in a confused jumble; among the sideways, fallen ruins, very many broken carts. Churned up, torn up earth, shell splinters over it, in it - a place of debris that showed the work of human hands in all its patheticness and fragility.Countless wounded and dying cover the blood-soaked ground. Masterless, slightly wounded horses walk over the field, neighing, shrieking; others lay dead and motionless. Under the gray-glimmering, cloud-covered sky, the ravens caw and hold dialogue with Death, whose triumphing foot strides over the rich harvest field. Medical soldiers search for his prey, as many as they can, to rescue them. They are diligent at their work, but their number is insignificant compared to the vast field.The Reckensteiner signals to his few people; he leaves behind the stoker and the aide-de-camp; the others must participate there below. So the rescue work proceeds, and the best helpers are the wounded, one to an-other. He whose right arm is shot to pieces helps up his heavily wounded neighbor with his left; not ignoring his own wound, one seeks to ease that of the other.The small military hospital at the train station goes into action. A good number of the wounded have already been brought here for the first dressing. Even here the Reckensteiner is not idle. The wounded are loaded into the empty carriage with the greatest possible rush for it is necessary. He himself---163---helps out powerfully; a quiet joy is in him that the old poor and ranks can still accomplish that."Let me lie; I'm done for... take him who can still do something!" stammers a simple musketeer and refuses to come with so that he does not dispute the place for his comrade.
Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary
The section beginning with "Trenches and entanglements shot to pieces..." has no verbs, and this sort of paratactic style illustrates the confusion of the aftermath of the battle.
I translated "blutgedüngten" as "blood-soaked" ("Countless wounded and dying cover the blood-soaked ground."), although it's actually "blood-fertilized."
