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...the first shells whistle over and the air is rent with the explosions...
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1929, p. 53.
PLACE: Europe
TIME: First World War (1914 - 1918)
The thunder of the guns swells to a single heavy roar and then breaks up again into separate explosions. The dry bursts of the machineguns rattle. Above us the air teems with invisible swift movement, with howls, pipings, and hisses. They are the smaller shells; - and amongst them, booming through the night like an organ, go the great coalboxes and the heavies. They have a hoarse, distant bellow like a rutting stag and make their way high above the howl and whistle of the smaller shells. It reminds me of flocks of wild geese when I hear them.
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1929, p. 58.
PLACE: Europe
TIME: First World War (1914 - 1918)
The crack of the guns is heard long after the roar of the explosions.
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1929, p. 60.
PLACE: Europe
TIME: First World War (1914 - 1918)
Things become quieter, but the cries do not cease .... The cries continue. It is not men, they could not cry so terribly. "Wounded horses" .... It's unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning ....
The screaming of the beasts becomes louder. One can no longer distinguish whence in this now quiet, silvery landscape it comes; ghostly, invisible, it is everywhere, between heaven and earth it rolls on immeasurably. Detering raves and yells out: "Shoot them."
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1929, p. 62.
PLACE: Europe
TIME: First World War (1914 - 1918)
We sit down and hold our ears. But this appalling noise, these groans and screams penetrate, they penetrate everywhere ... we must get up and run, no matter where, but where these cries can no longer be heard ... then single shots crack out.
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1929, p. 63.
PLACE: Europe
TIME: First World War (1914 - 1918)
The dull thud of the gas-shells mingles with the crashes of the high explosives. A bell sounds between the explosions, gongs, and metal clappers warning everyone ...
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1929, p. 4.
PLACE: Europe
TIME: First World War (1914 - 1918)
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