Not one stone remains on another. The streets are one line of
shell--holes. Add to that the thunder of the guns, and you will see
with what feelings we come into the line--into trenches where for
months shells of all caliber have rained. . . Flers is a scrap heap."
Again and again men lost their way up to the lines. The reliefs could
only be made at night lest they should be discovered by British airmen
and British gunners, and even if these German soldiers had trench maps
the guidance was but little good when many trenches had been smashed
in and only shell-craters could be found.
"In the front line of Flers," wrote one of these Germans, "the men
were only occupying shell-holes. Behind there was the intense smell of
putrefaction which filled the trench--almost unbearably. The corpses
lie either quite insufficiently covered with earth on the edge of the
trench or quite close under the bottom of the trench, so that the
earth lets the stench through. In some places bodies lie quite
uncovered in a trench recess, and no one seems to trouble about them.
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