platoon, only a few of the men in it survive after they return to Guillemont, where there is now only a huge cratered field in the place where the village once stood. Heistermann and Jünger’s orderly, Schmidt, take refuge in a foxhole. Heistermann is killed, but Schmidt survives, despite severe injuries, to relate to Jünger what has taken place in his absence. The German position in Combles falls to the British, and the surviving Germans are taken prisoner and carried away by British stretcher-bearers. After this, Jünger says, the area around Combles is “quiet” until the Germans retake it nearly two years later, in the spring of 1918, the last year of the war.

The Woods of St-Pierre-Vaast

After a period of two weeks in the hospital and a further two weeks of recuperating at home, Jünger returns to his regiment, now at a town called Deuxnouds. He refers to the “Grand Tranchée,” which was not actually a trench but a road in the area of Verdun which saw extremely heavy fighting throughout the war. At another place, called Brancourt, he is quartered with “a couple and their very beautiful daughter.” There is an odd bit of light-heartedness in his accounts of the flirtations between him and this young lady, and of the comical behavior of a comrade who is quartered with “a rather coarse Flemish beauty, who went by the name of Madame Louise.”

Jünger relates that at this point, in November of 1916, he is serving as a “scouting officer” (Spähoffizier). His role is to reconnoitre the enemy positions at night. At one point he loses his way in the dark and nearly drowns in a swamp. Although the impression is that this is a relatively calm phase of the war, there is still constant artillery bombardment, and men are being killed by the attacks of phosgene gas launched by the British. Jünger gets through a gas attack but then several days later loses his way again during his reconnaissance mission as he wanders through the cratered landscape. He is shot by a sniper in both legs but manages to tie up the wounds before getting to a dressing-station. 

Another of many chance happenings is Jünger’s narrow escape from being blown up by an artillery shell when he is stopped by one of the company commanders as he is hobbling from the woods onto the road. Later he is taken by stretcher and by car to a priest’s house where the Germans are housing their wounded, then to a field hospital, and finally to the military hospital in Valenciennes. The hospital is predictably filled with severely wounded men, including amputees and men with blood poisoning who are in a state of delirium. 

As he recovers from his wounds this time, Jünger experiences a period of depression but returns to his division and the front after two weeks. An artillery attack occurs just as his train pulls into the station at the town of Epéhy. When he returns to duty, he still cannot march properly, so he is given the post of observation officer (Beobachtungsoffizier). This involves merely watching the enemy lines through a stereo-telescope and then using the telephone to report troop movements and activity. When Jünger is relieved every twenty-four hours by another officer, he is sent to quarters in a wine cellar where he spends the evenings smoking his pipe amid the only occasional sound of shells exploding in the distance.

By mid-December, Jünger is fully recovered and able to return to his regiment in the village of Fresnoy-le-Grand. Christmas and New Year are spent peacefully and enjoyably, and one of the cadets stationed in the same village is Jünger’s brother Fritz. Even in the safe conditions away from the front, Jünger is nearly killed by the accidental discharge of a pistol being handled by a fellow officer. He observes that this is another in the series of random events that typically occur in warfare, given the often careless handling of weapons by military men.

In mid-January, Jünger is ordered away from Fresnoy in order to attend a four-week training course in company command at a place called Sissonne. He enjoys the course but notes that the food is terrible, with dinner consisting mainly of watery turnips rather than something more substantial, such as the expected potatoes.