In Sawafir they let us sleep the night. Despite our tiredness it is difficult to get to sleep. Twenty meters away from us an artillery battery is thundering without pause. The next morning we watch the work of the gunners and find it fascinating. They sit there quietly while their boss, Dr Wolfgang von Weisl, tells them jokes in his typical Austrian accent. With one hand he keeps the earpiece of the field telephone pressed to his ear. In mid-sentence he breaks off and calls "group fire - one shrapnel...!"
The gunners around him jump up. With astonishing speed they go about their work. Next to every gun one of them is standing, and shouts "Number one ready!" "Number two ready!" ...
"Fire!" shouts the old man. A bang, some smoke, the shells are on their way. The people sit down again. They have done their job, with almost Olympian calm, without seeing the enemy, without knowing the target of their shots.
We stand and admire the "Napoleons" - that’s what we call the old guns that look as though they haven’t been used for a hundred years. That is so remote from war as we know it - fatigue, pain, the tension of the infantryman who sees the enemy face to face. Still, we love the gunners. We are feeling generous these days. Anyone who finds them-selves between Sawafir and Negba can be sure of our love.
"Up you get, people!"
Another drive to Ibdis - ammunition to be delivered, wounded to be evacuated. This damned position cannot be reached without being observed by the enemy lookouts. But we have now got used to it, driving through a field under fire. We have learned that the danger of being hit is rather low under these conditions. You just have to rely on speed and luck.
In Ibdis all hell has broken loose. The earth shakes from the impact of shells. Yesterday we waited for the whistling of shells before throwing ourselves on the ground. Now you can’t even hear the indi-vidual shells, they follow each other in such quick succession - twenty-five-pounder shells and heavy mortar bombs. Yesterday air-craft, artillery, and tanks took their turns. Today they are all in action at once. The aircraft dive at us while we are shooting at the tanks, and the impacts of shells spray us with earth when we get up to shoot at the aircraft.
Just as we arrive the horror reaches a climax. A wild being,