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Updated: June 1, 2025
I endeavoured to address them in French and could not. I tried German. That was worse and the final result chaos. All I could think of was "Kamerad." I kept on like a parrot, foolishly repeating it. All this took but a moment and then they were gone and we after them. So there were they, walking hurriedly, fearful of us for Germans no doubt and casting uneasy glances back.
When it got nothing by screaming and stiffening, however, it suddenly grew quiet; regarded him with pale blue eyes, and tried to make itself comfortable against his khaki coat. It put out a grimy little fist and took hold of one of his buttons. "Kamerad, eh?" he muttered, glaring at the infant. "Cut it out!"
Language is futile to give anything like an adequate description of the scene in the crater. A few of the Huns, more long-headed than the rest, still clung to the tank, remaining there until it reached the top, when they held up their arms, yelling Kamerad at the top of their lungs, and these were all that were left of that 300 just 20.
When he saw my pistol, he jerked his hands above his head. Dirty and unshaven, with the tears all wet on his face, he looked a woe-begone and tragic figure. "Kamerad! Kamerad!" he muttered stupidly at me. "Napoo! Kaput! Englander!" I gazed at the stranger, hardly able to believe my ears. That trench jargon in this place! "Are you English?" I asked him.
So it was a crooked Kamerad cry, a peace offensive intended to sing us to sleep, that Germany launched in September, 1918. The impression was immediate and came near to being disastrous. Many urgent requests were being made just then for public help from America.
An old Rittmeister held it, his breast covered with decorations, and he just wouldn't give in. Of course, so long as he stuck it the other Bosches did too, and there was nothing doing in the Kamerad line. They fought like fury. So did our men, but we were slightly outnumbered, and it soon began to be evident that we should have to retire if we didn't get reinforcements.
Then he is mighty quick to throw up his hands and shout: "Kamerad! Kamerad!" I might go on all night telling you some of the stories I heard along the front about the Scottish soldiers. They illustrate and explain every phase of his character. They exploit his humor, despite that base slander to which I have already referred, his courage, his stoicism.
"Not so much of your 'Mercy, Kamerad," said the cockney. "'And us over your bloody ticker!" It was the man's watch he wanted, without sentiment. One tale was most popular, most mirth-arousing in the early days of the war. "Where's your prisoner?" asked an Intelligence officer waiting to receive a German sent down from the trenches under escort of an honest corporal.
The noise, the terrific noise of our artillery bombarding the German trenches is hard enough on our nerves; what it must be on the nerves of the enemy is beyond conception. We do not wonder that in these latter days they fall on their knees and yell "Kamerad!" As a rule a charge takes place just before dawn, when the gray cold light of morning is struggling up from the East.
As they sat on the edge, their feet rested on the narrow quay along which we drove, and I loved to go as near as possible and pretend I was going over them, just for the fun of watching the Boches roll on their backs in terror with their feet high in the air. A new method of saying Kamerad!
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