This Month's Installment
An endless train. Close behind the engine, the two ration carriages, then the hospital carriage and a number of others with wounded laid side-by-side, on top of each other, the doctors and medical soldiers among them, and where the narrowness of the space possibly allowed it, helping them.
The locomotive did not have it easy: groaning and puffing, it tows forward the boa constrictor connected to it. But suddenly, a halt; it has arrived at a narrow pass; the stretch goes uphill; the locomotive stalls. The
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commander has feared it. Therefore, he has guided the train up to here.
The spot is critical; it lies between the high ridges, against which the troops have drawn back, to use them as backing and defense positions against the rushing enemy.
In fact, on the other hand, one sees little of men, only small groups on the other side of the angularly undulating line, behind which houses and farms anxiously duck. But in the air, the same sound: like whirring wings and the whistling of a storm and jets of water whizzing up. Even out of the treetops, the rain of bullets rattles down, beside the rumbling and thundering and roaring of the cannons. The battle is in full swing, and he with his train is caught in the middle of the fire! What will he do?
He does not consider long. First, it was a matter of bringing the ration carriages to safety; they must not fall into the hands of the enemy. He gives an order to go backwards a little to a spot that lies deeper and is protected by the hills. Then he lets the carriages be uncoupled by the soldiers and sends the locomotive with the rations ahead, to Gumbinnen, when it goes. But as quickly as possible, it should come back and fetch the wounded; he himself will stay with them!
Commentary
Almost by accident, I translated "wie schwirrende Flügel und Sturmespfeifen und aufzischende Wasserstrahlen" so that it alliterates: "like whirring wings and the whistling of a storm and jets of water whizzing up."
