Tuesday, September 22nd.

I start a few letters, fingers frozen, nose wet:

An interruption. A woman appears, thin and dirty, pushing before her a little yellow-haired girl, whose eyes are red-rimmed and tear-stained. The doctor having been consulted, prescribes for colic.

"And what do I owe you for that, doctor?" asks the woman.

"Nothing at all, madam."

But she draws from beneath her apron a dusty bottle. "I must 'recompinse' you somehow. There is not very much in it, but what there is tastes good. It is good: oh, but indeed it is!"

It is Toul wine, dry, thin and somewhat sharp. A brawn, turned out on to a plate, gives us an excellent lunch.

In the afternoon we pass to the observation trench. We overtake a group of lame men, without weapons, coats open, almost all of them limping along with a stick. Among them I recognize a friend of pre-war days. We shake hands and speak eagerly and with pleasure of common memories, before approaching the inevitable regrets. As he belonged to a regiment which was compelled to give way before the Boches, I asked him how it had come about. He shrugged his shoulders despondently.

"Masses of infantry; an endless hail of shell; not a gun to support us … don't let's talk about it, old man."

After the iciness of the preceding night, a day of burning sunshine. I am wearing ridiculously thin boots, which decrease in size as my feet swell. I give stones a wide berth.

To the right of the road the fields roll away like a great cloth, fresh and green until they reach the heights covered with trees, whose luxuriant foliage seems to fall from the top to the bottom of the slopes.

"Single file through the cutting."

That is the sign that we are entering the zone of fire of the German guns. We climb and pass through the village of Mouilly, built on the side of a slope. Almost all the houses, with their plaster faÇades, are on one side of the road, the left. On the other side meadows stretch away to where the sun rises and where the green of the wooded highlands begins its cascade to the plains below. Enormous shell-holes mark the meadows, about which the upflung earth forms brown circles which look from the distance like enormous stains.

Woods. Some shrapnel bursts ahead of us, but far away. In the cutting we encounter a big grey motor-car, ornamented with gilt letters. One of its wheels has been blown away and its steel sides bear the mark of shells: it was the product of some great Leipzig firm.

We overtake a regiment of the division at the end of the wood on the Mouilly-Saint-RÉmy road. A fight has taken place, and our 75's are still sending down a rain of shells, forming a barrage some five hundred yards before us. We stand and watch it, Porchon and I, together with the two officers we are going to relieve. They are both fine soldiers and speak unaffectedly of the battle they have just passed through. One of them, tall, bony, with tanned skin and black eyes almost feverishly keen above a fine nose, expresses himself shortly and precisely. The second, small, rather too affable, with a wrinkled face, laughing eyes, fresh lips and a brown beard, entertains us with a recital of horrors in a cheerful voice and warns us that we are very likely to "leave our skins over there."

The thunder of the 75's almost splits our ears. Occasionally a German shell flies past us with a shrill whistle and peppers the trees with a volley of shrapnel. Into the midst of this tumult we march and take up position. My section occupies about fifty yards of a trench already full of corpses.

"Out with your tools," I say to my men, "and dig for all you are worth."

Night falls. The cold increases. It is that hour when, the battle ended, the wounded who have not yet been brought in, cry aloud in their suffering and distress. And those calls, those appealings, those moanings, awaken anguish in all those compelled to listen to them; an anguish the crueller for the fighters who are chained to their posts by stern duty yet who long to rush out to their gasping comrades, to dress their wounds, to speak words of comfort to them, and to carry them to safety where fires burn brightly and warm. Yet we must not do so; we are chained to the spot, our hearts wrung, our nerves quivering, shivering at the sound of soul-stricken cries brought to us unceasingly by the night.

"A drink!…"

"Are you going to leave me to die here?…"

"Stretcher-bearers!…"

"Drink!…"

"Ah!…"

"Stretcher-bearers!…"

I hear some of my men say:

"Where the devil are the stretcher-bearers!" … (Censored) …

"They are like fleas—you can never find them when you look for them."

And before us the whole plain wrapped in darkness seems to shiver from the agony of those undressed wounds.

Voices soft, weary from having cried so long:

"… (Censored) …

….?"

"Mother, oh, mother!"

"Jeanne, little Jeanne…. Oh! say that you hear me, my Jeanne!"

"I am thirsty…. I am thirsty…. I am thirsty…. I am thirsty…."

Voices in anguish, panting and gasping:

"I won't die here like a rat!"

"Stretcher-bearers! Stretcher-bearers!… Stretcher-bearers!!!"

"… (Censored) …

….?"

"You fellows, finish me off, for God's sake! Ah!…"

A German, not more than twenty yards away, cries out incessantly:

"Kamerad! Franzose! Kamerad! Kamerad! Franzose!"

And in a lower voice:

"Hilfe! Hilfe!"

His voice wavers and breaks into a wailing as of a crying child; then his teeth snap fiercely; then he shatters the night stillness with a beast's cry, like the howling of a dog baying at the moon.

Terrible beyond the power of words, that night. Every minute either Porchon or myself were jumping to our feet. The whole time we were under fire and the cold was truly cursed.

Wednesday, September 23rd.

Relief appears at last. We depart through the woods along a pathway from which the undergrowth has been cleared, thus permitting us to see well ahead. During a short halt, several of the men break into exclamations of pleasure and delight:

"Hallo! Vauthier!"

"And you, Raynaud!"

"Well, I'm damned…. Baurain!"

"It is not possible! We thought you had gone for good…. What have you been doing?… Where do you come from?"

Three men report to me and show that they were ordered to rejoin on this date. I am pleased, for the three men, intelligent, devoted, and brave, are among the best under my command.

(Suppressed by the Censor.)

(Suppressed by the Censor.)

In going towards Mouilly, we repass the big grey motor-car at the side of the road. A little further on, the ranks open a little without command, in order not to disturb a wounded horse. It is a magnificent, black beast, a king of its kind. Shrapnel has wounded it in the chest and broken one of its shoulders, from which the blood streams right down to the hoof to form a pool in the dust. Its flanks are quivering with the agony it is enduring, while the shattered leg is violently trembling. The sufferings of this poor, gasping, dumb brute, dying minute by minute, and the pathetic, pain-darkened eyes with which it watches us as we pass, stir every man among us as if we were looking upon human agony….

The nearer we approach the village, the more numerous become the wounded men returning from the fight. They come in groups, carefully selecting the shorter grass to walk over, seeking the shade to avoid the burning sun, which makes their wounds smart intolerably. There are a few Germans mingled with our men; one big-built man, fair, ruddy and with blue eyes, is assisting a little French infantryman, who limps along jesting and laughing and displaying all his teeth. With a wicked glance towards us, he cries aloud to the Boche:

"Is it not true, you pig, that you are a good pig?"

"I understand," exclaims the German gutturally. "Pig, good pig! I understand!"

And an unctuous laugh spreads all over his greasy face, happy at this display of camaraderie which promises so well for him, as vile and loathsome as are all Boches when at the mercy of a conqueror.

Mouilly. Other roads descend from the woods, all choked with processions of wounded, and still more wounded, moving slowly down into the village. Dressing-stations have been set up in the barns; about them is a litter, constantly increasing, of stained bandages and blood-soaked pieces of cotton-wool, extending in some cases almost into the middle of the road. From the interior of the barns emanate sharp cries, speaking eloquently of bitter pain and endurance; the air reeks with the pungent smell of iodoform.

About the little church, with its shell-shattered windows, lies the cemetery, with its mossy tombstones and rust-eaten metal crosses. Empty, newly-dug graves yawn; so many little mounds bear the fresh marks of the pick! And towards this cemetery some stretcher-bearers come, walking slowly and in time, carrying between them stretchers, hurdles, step-ladders, on which still figures lie, rigid beneath the rough cloth covering them.

We come to a halt near the Amblonville Farm, whose spacious and strongly-built walls look down over wide and rolling grass-lands, moist and verdant. The Mouilly Road terminates there: it stretches away before us, crossing a stream over a little stone bridge, passes a silver-surfaced lake, which acts as a mirror to the superb trees about it, to become winding and narrow near some sombre woods, amid which a half-hidden windmill arises, and finally scales the abrupt heights behind which lies the village.

Behind the summit some 75's are firing steadily and slowly. Lower down, guns, horses and their drivers, and ammunition wagons, appearing as though sighted through the wrong end of a telescope, flow almost imperceptibly this way and that, like weeds slowly waving in the depths of a river.

We make a fire, and soon potatoes begin to glaze and blacken among the glowing cinders. As a matter of sheer habit we eat them, defying such inconveniences as dyspepsia or enteritis or dysentery, from one or the other of which almost all of us have suffered for a month past.

German aeroplanes come circling above us in the course of the afternoon. Our shells hurtle towards them like gigantic rockets minus their tail of sparks. Puffs of smoke, shot through for an instant by a golden glow, follow the aircraft, describing drifting circles about them, white as driven snow. They continue their flight, however, wheeling through space like birds of prey, watching always. A few bombs are dropped, burying themselves in the earth about us. One of them explodes violently, rather uncomfortably close at hand. The cyclist, who was lying down, jumped hastily to his feet and examined his foot.

"Not a scratch!" he exclaimed. "It only cut open my shoe!"

Down into the grass where he had been dozing he sank again, waving his hand towards the whistling shells:

"You up there! Let us have no more of your impertinence."

Having carefully arranged his handkerchief over his face, to shield his eyes from the sun, he continued to grumble under cover of it:

"A good pair of bath-pumps gone for nothing! I have a good mind to give up marching altogether!"

An hour later a few smoke-wreathed whizz-bangs pass over the top of the hill and fall alongside our batteries. One or two burst directly above the medley of traffic in the roadway, causing the microscopical horses (as they appeared to us), to rear and kick, and sending men, who looked to be no more than big insects, running this way and that; finally the whole concourse, like a long-drawn ribbon, moves away to vanish beneath the trees to the left. The guns remain in position.

The sunset this evening over the valley is limpid and indescribably beautiful. The sky pales to the zenith as the sinking sun glides from transparent emerald to its bed of many golds, which deepen to the crimson of leaping flames on the skyline.

Thursday, September 24th.

One half the company is quartered at the farm. A stroke of luck enabled me to snatch a good four hours' sleep in the hay. Of course there was bound to be one fly in the amber. Our barn, big and lofty, was a veritable trap for draughts. Moreover, the noise of a continual coming and going, quarrels among the men regarding their respective berths, or a lost water-bottle, or a rifle that had been substituted for another one, created an unceasing din hardly propitious to sleep. With the dawn we march back to our meadow. Once more we wait and wait, with nothing to do, knowing nothing.

Ten o'clock! An order comes to hand: "The men must get their food now or not at all, and be ready to move at a moment's notice."

The cooks are in a very bad temper because the haricot beans, defying all efforts and coaxings, remain obdurately hard.

"Not worth while making oneself ill with such stuff! They would blow out a wooden horse!"

"Of course if the men don't mind chewing shrapnel!"

I advise my men to cook what meat they have, so that, if necessary, it can be eaten on the road as we go along.

It appears I was wise in my generation, for very shortly the "Fall in!" sounds, and we set off at once, evidently in the direction of Mouilly.

It is odd, but we cannot hear the faintest sound of fighting, not even the snap of a rifle or the boom of a gun. Yet over the hilltop there comes at a trot towards us a non-commissioned officer of mounted chasseurs, his head swathed in blood-stained bandages. Although rather pale, he sits erect in his saddle and smiles cheerfully.

"Hit?" someone calls out.

"Nothing to talk about. A shell splinter shaved my head."

Questions follow him along the road.

"Is it very unhealthy over there?"

"A little, my son. Just wait five minutes and you will have something to show as good as anything you will find at Mouilly!"

Down in the village Red Cross officers are fussing about. We meet two motor-cars travelling at full speed and raising a suffocating cloud of dust.

Wounded men drag themselves along, without equipment or rifles, their chests bare, uniforms tattered, hair wet with perspiration, white-cheeked and bloodstained. They have improvised bandages out of their handkerchiefs, shirt-sleeves or towels. They walk stoopingly, heads bent, hunched to one side, by reason of broken shoulders or arms that hang listless and heavy. Some are crawling, some are hopping on one foot, some with the aid of two sticks drag behind them a lifeless limb, smothered in bandages. There are faces so swathed that only the eyes appear, feverish and distressed; others in which only one eye is visible, the other hidden beneath dressings through which the blood percolates and trickles down bristly chins. And here are two wounded men on stretchers, their faces waxlike and shrunken, nostrils pinched, eyes closed and shadowed, bloodless hands clutching the sides of the ambulance; behind them huge drops mark their course through the dust.

"An ambulance! Where can I find an ambulance?" ask some of the other wounded of the bearers.

"Where are you going to be sent to?"

"I say, you fellow there! Have you got any bandages?"

"Give him your flask, I say; give it to him!…"

Looking upon all which sights, the nerves of my men begin to suffer as I can plainly see.

"… (Censored)…!"

"…!"

Some of the wounded joke light-heartedly:

"Eh! Binet, now were you careful to number your giblets?…"

"Oh, my mother! If you could only see your son's face now!"

"Thank the good Boches for my nice wound; a billet at Nice, the CÔte d'Azur and the Casinos where you can scratch up the gold with little rakes!"

"So you've been saving up now?"

"Saving! I should think so. Live carefully on a bullet a day, and it doesn't take you long to become a millionaire."

But gaiety finds no echo. The men fall silent, stricken with nameless forebodings. Suddenly the shells hurtle whistling over the wood.

"In single file through the cutting!"

We stumble against branches, get entangled in the brambles. The grass deadens the echo of our footsteps, which a moment before resounded along the road.

"Lie down!"

The order comes not a moment too soon, for hardly have we obeyed it when a shell bursts right on top of us. Stones are flung high in the air, and simultaneously two men behind me cry out. The detonation makes my ears tingle; a heavy, acrid odour fills the air.

"Lieutenant! That was my baptism. Just look at these two little holes!"

I turn to look into a rather pale and anxious face, which nevertheless expresses great relief. The man is a corporal, newly joined. He has unbuckled his pack to show me two bullet holes running right through the roll of it.

"You will find the bullets inside, all right," I tell him. "You had better keep them as souvenirs!"

All this while another of my men, named Gaubert, is grumbling and congratulating himself at one and the same moment. He playfully exhibits his flask, a battered, pitiful object which had just intercepted a bullet on its way to his thigh.

"Bravo, my little flask—bravo, my friend! You did not want your Gaubert to be sent down; so you took his place. What a good chap you are!… But what do you think your Gaubert is going to drink out of now? What do you want me to drink out of? I ask you!"

But he does not throw the useless can away; instead he places it carefully in his sack.

"I shall have to use my mess-tin—but never mind!"

Listen! I fancy I can hear the sounds of firing. It gives one the impression of being far distant; yet it should be near enough to us, rather too near, in fact. Perhaps the hill to the right is obstructing the sound! Porchon is at my side, because I am marching with the leading section.

"Do you hear?" I ask him.

"Hear what?"

"Rifle fire."

"No!"

How does he manage not to hear it? I am more certain than ever now that I am not mistaken. That sort of crackling, distant perhaps, but nevertheless continuously audible, is the battle towards which we are marching, and which is being waged away over there beyond the hilltop. Let us hasten! It is imperative we should fling ourselves immediately and without hesitation into the midst of that fight, face boldly the bullets streaming and striking. Hurry we must, for wounded men are coming down towards us, followed by others in an endless file, and it is as if merely by showing themselves with their wounds and their blood and their appearance of complete exhaustion, with their anguished faces—it is as if they said and repeated again and again to my men:

"See, there is a battle raging! See what it has done for us; just look upon us returning. And there are hundreds and hundreds more who cannot follow us; who have fallen as we did, who have striven to rise, but could not, and who are lying about everywhere in the woods, dying. There are hundreds and hundreds of others who fell dead where they stood, struck in the head, in the heart, in the stomach, who have rolled over on to the moss, whose still warm bodies you will find lying about everywhere in the woods. You can see them for yourselves if you go there. But if you do go, the bullets will kill you also, as they killed them; or they will wound you, as they have wounded us. Do not go on!"

And the living flesh, shrinking instinctively from death, recoils.

"Porchon, watch the men!"

I have carefully lowered my voice and he, replying to me, does the same.

"Things look bad: I am afraid we may have trouble in a bit."

In one backward glance he has seen the faces of the men, anxious, lined with dread, distorted by nervous grimaces, every man in the grip of a tempest of fear, wide-eyed and feverish.

Still, without faltering, they march behind us. Each step forward they take brings them nearer that corner of the earth where death reigns to-day, yet still they march onwards. Each one with his living flesh is about to enter an inferno; yet the terror-stricken body will act as it should, will perform all the actions of a man fighting a battle. The eyes will aim wind judge; the finger on the trigger will not fail. And so they will go on for as long as may be necessary, despite the bullets flying about them, whistling and singing without pause, often striking with a queer dead noise which makes one turn one's head quickly, and which seems to say: "Here! Look!" They look and see a comrade fall, and say to themselves: "In a little while perhaps it will be my turn; in an hour or a minute or even in this passing second, it will be my turn." And then every particle of their flesh will shrink and know fear. They will be afraid—that is as certain as it is inevitable; but being afraid, they will remain at their posts. And they will fight, compelling their bodies to obedience, because they know that that is what they should do, and because—well! because they are men.

By fours, through the wood and up the slope. I cannot overcome the forebodings aroused by the nervousness of my men. I have complete confidence in them and in myself; but, that confidence notwithstanding, something warns me instinctively of the presence of a new element, of a danger I cannot define even to myself, of—can it be panic? What an age we are in going up! My pulses are beating violently; the blood is rushing to my brain.

"Ah!…"

The instant we reach the top of the slope a volley, hissing, tearing and spitting, is directed at us. A common impulse causes the men to throw themselves flat to the earth.

"Up you get, nom d'un chien! Regnard, Lauche, all the N.C.O.'s … (Censored) … Make them get up!"

The fire is not yet heavy. A few bullets only come seeking us, shattering the branches about us. I call out at the top of my voice:

"Let it be clearly understood! All N.C.O.'s are responsible for seeing that no man falls out. We are about to cross a copse where it is very easy to get away. You must keep a very sharp look-out."

Two men rush into the clearing where I am standing. They run so quickly that they appear to be flying from the foe. Their faces are bloody and no merciful bandage conceals the wounds which they are coming to show to my men! As they come up, the first man cries:

"Get out of the way! Make room! There are others following us!"

That man no longer possesses a nose; in place of it there is a hole which bleeds and bleeds….

His companion has had his lower jaw blown off. Is it credible a single bullet could effect such a shocking injury? Almost half his face is no more than a soft, hanging, crimson piece of flesh, from which blood and saliva trickle in a viscous stream. Above this horror peer out two round, blue, boyish eyes; they stare at me, eloquent with unendurable distress, in mute stupefaction. The sight shakes me to the very depths of my being, to the point of tears; then the unmeasured rage of a madman against those who caused this war, who set all this blood running, who massacre and mutilate, sweeps over me like a storm.

"Get out of the way! Get out of the way!"

Another man is crying out the words now. Staggering and livid, he presses both his hands to the lower part of his abdomen to hold in his intestines, bulging in his crimson shirt. Another is desperately clutching his arm, from which large drops of blood drip constantly. A fourth suddenly stops running, kneels down before us, with his back towards the enemy, opens his clothes and deliberated withdraws from the inner side of the groin a bullet, which he carefully places in his purse.

And so endlessly they stream past us, each one with the same staring eyes, following the same stumbling and zigzag course, panting, obsessed by the thought of the hilltop behind which lies safety, burning to get out of this ravine where death whistles amid the leaves, in order to recover their nerves down there, where their wounds will be dressed, where they will be cared for, perhaps even saved.

"Your section will occupy the ditch which forms a continuation of the Callone trench," Porchon tells me. "Keep a close watch over our left, the roadway and this clearing. You will be covering the battalion on this side."

I lead my men right into the heart of the inferno. I have to shout at the top of my voice to make the sergeant and corporals hear my orders. Behind us a machine-gun spits furiously, sweeping the road with a veritable stream of bullets. We are only just beyond the arc of its fire, and the incessant detonations follow each other so rapidly that all one can hear is a rending sound, as though the earth itself were gradually splitting asunder. At times the vicious sweep gets unpleasantly close, and a death-dealing swarm of lead whips and rends the air, dashing warm puffs into our faces. At the same time German bullets fly through the leaves; they embed themselves in the trunks of trees, shatter big branches, tear off smaller ones, which drift lightly and slowly down upon us; they fly over the road before the machine-gun bullets, which they seem to defy; it is almost as if a duel were being waged between these whistling demons which pass spattering, spluttering and ricochetting, spitefully hissing there before us over the road where the stones lie pulverized.

"Lie down at the bottom of the ditch. Good Lord, don't raise your head!"

Two of my men have now been wounded; one of them near me has sunk to his knees, and is gasping and vomiting blood; the other sits down with his back to a tree-trunk and begins to unlace his gaiters with trembling fingers in order to see "where it is," and "how it is."

The noise of galloping in the clearing. Are they coming this way? No! …! …!

"Well done, Morand! Bravo, my boy! …!"

(Suppressed by Censor.)

(Censored)

(Censored)

(Censored)

"What, the Boches? How will they explain it afterwards?"

"Ah, good! Here you are, Lieutenant…."

A corporal stands beside me, cool and unperturbed. There is no such word as fear in the dictionary of this man.

"Some of the men broke and ran a few moments ago," he says, "and it is not good to think about. But I must say the occasion justified them. The Boches came up like rats, swarming everywhere. The thickets are full of them now; some of them are not more than fifty yards away. I assure you it is so, Lieutenant, and I am not short-sighted. There is not a single Frenchman between us and them, and they are there all right…."

It is true enough, but all the same…. Their cursed bullets are covering every inch of ground round about us.

Suddenly their bugles ring out and their drums sound close at hand, very close. They are charging.

"Look, they're there," cries one of my men. "You can see them there."

At the end of the clearing two Germans are kneeling and firing.

"Rapid fire! Right into them!… Fire!"

Lebels crack. The fumes of burnt powder drift beneath the trees. The German bugles sound louder; the noise of their drums almost drowns the fusillade. Behind us the machine-gun splutters with sufficient violence to destroy its own tripod.

"There they are! There they are!…"

The men have called out simultaneously and without any trace of fear in their voices. They are excited by the surrounding inferno, by the increasing smell of burning powder, by the sight of the enemy advancing in mass formation less than a hundred yards away—dense ranks of men in which our bullets create constant gaps. The intoxication of battle has seized the men; no longer is there thought of panic.

"Fix bayonets!"

"Hardly worth the trouble now, Lieutenant … you must retire."

A breathless voice has uttered these words, and I turn to find that Presle, my agent de liaison, has come up behind me. Great drops of perspiration fall from him, and he breathes pantingly, mouth wide open. One of his cartridge slings hangs severed from his belt.

"A bullet did that," he said. "Cut the sling while I was running. However, I come to inform you that you must retire behind the hill, above the Saint Remy road. We are going to hold on there. The other companies are gone already—you alone remain now. You must move quickly."

Move quickly! A very simple business, of course, considering the thorny and tangled undergrowth, which wraps itself about one's legs, binds and tears them.

"Morand, see that no one goes by the path. If they do, they'll only get cut down. They'll be mere targets. No one by the path until we meet at the top of the hill!"

It's the same old story of the poor lot who wouldn't go through the scrub at Vauxmarie. It's much easier to run by the path; there are no thorns to tear one's legs or get in the way; but certain death lurks there!

"Halt!… Half turn … skirmishing formation … fire as you like!"

The men obey me to the letter. That is good, very good—an obedient, intelligent fighting section. My heart beats rapidly but steadily. Just now I feel sure of myself, self-possessed, happy. I want to laugh at the bullets, and I thrust my quite unnecessary revolver back into my belt.

The German bugles are now no longer sounding; their Mausers are firing only at irregular intervals. What are they up to? I determine to try and discover.

"Cease fire!"

I walk forward a few steps erect, seeking no cover. I am ready to wager that the forest is teeming with the pigs, that they will try to swamp us at twenty yards. I feel them numerous, invisible, about me. Invisible!… Not quite. I can see you, German beast, behind that tree, and you also to the left; your uniform is darker than the leaves. Just wait a moment, my merry men, and we'll make you a present of something. I make a signal to Morand, who has received previous instructions, and he runs up. I show him the bull's-eye.

"Just look there, behind that big … ah! … I have got it!"

"Lieutenant!" … Morand's voice is startled…. "Are you wounded?… Lieutenant!…"

"Eh? What?… Oh, yes!…"

Some enormous projectile has caught me full in the stomach, while at the same moment a brilliant yellow streak flies before my eyes. I have fallen to my knees, doubled up, my hands pressing my stomach. How horribly painful…. I can no longer breathe…. In the stomach, too—that is serious!… What is going to become of my men?… In the stomach! If only I could see my dear ones for the last time!… Ah! I can breathe now. That is a bit better. Where exactly have I been struck?

I take cover behind a tree, sitting down and leaning against it. Some of the men rush towards me—I recognize them all. One of them, Delval, wants to carry me in his arms, but I find I can walk quite well alone. Even my legs do not fail me, and I can sit without any discomfort.

"No, I don't want anyone," I say. "Fall in again, I want no one."

It certainly can't be very serious. What a story it will make! In the centre of my tunic is a hole, the edges of which are frayed. I thrust my finger in and draw it out again. There is just a smear of blood, nothing more. Why isn't there more?

Ah! and my belt has been cut, and the button that should be there, where has that gone? My trousers are pierced also. Here is the spot where the ball struck; a crimson patch on the skin, which is slightly torn. Just one drop of blood trickling … is that, then, my mortal wound?

I look stupidly at my stomach; mechanically I thrust my finger in and out of the hole in my coat … all at once I understand, and all my fears are instantly dissipated. Why did it take me so long to perceive what had happened?

The brilliant yellow streak that had flashed before my eyes must have been the button, now missing, struck by the bullet. For the fact that the button did not enter my body with the bullet, I must thank my belt, the surface of which is cracked where the button struck it.

But suppose the bullet had not struck the button, and my belt had not been precisely behind that button? Ah, well, my friend, these are vain speculations. In the meantime, you are acting rather grotesquely: a wounded officer who is not wounded, squatting behind a tree inspecting his stomach, while his section … get up, man, and back to your post!

It is surprising how slowly the Boches move. Are they too exhausted to advance? They must have lost heavily while charging up the hillside towards the summit. They are not too weary to fire, however! What a tempest! And our Lebels are speaking loudly, too, louder than ever. One can hardly hear anything in their incessant din. Only by straining the ear can one catch the spitting of the Mausers and whistling of their bullets.

Who is that up there, walking about all alone? I see it is the captain, with his eternal lance, unperturbed, eyes everywhere, quite serene. He cries out to me when he sees me:

"Hallo, is it you? I have just been told that you had a bullet in your stomach."

"So I did, Captain. But it was a harmless one this time. I am in luck."

I put myself at the head of my poilus. "Come along, boys! We're not going to be knocked out by that lot. Behind that pile of logs there."

There are more of our men a little further away to the right, disposed in skirmishing formation, forming an irregular but continuous line. They have made wonderfully good use of every inch of cover; kneeling behind tree-boles or piles of logs and firing; lying down behind miniature mounds, or in holes they have dug with their picks. The terrain is splendidly utilized—these men know how to fight.

A few yards behind them their officers watch and direct their fire. One of them walks about erect, strolls from man to man, nose in the air, pipe between his teeth, hands in his pockets. With a thrill of emotion I recognize the nose, the pipe and beard as belonging to Porchon. Ah, old man, I will tell you what I think about it afterwards!

Meanwhile I place my men over to the left, thus prolonging the line. Very soon their rifles are making a chorus with those of their neighbours.

"One round! Aim! Fire!"

A few of the men are late by a second or two.

"One round! Aim! Fire!"

A single sharp explosion; no one late this time. Excellent!

"Three rounds … at four hundred metres … fire!"

The Boches are certainly not brilliant marksmen! They do not aim; their bullets either fly too high among the branches above us or fall short before us. And their bugles? And their drums? Their last charge is a feeble affair, broken, finished, dead!

"Cease fire!"

My men, hearing, pass the order along and cease fire, but keep their rifles ready, awaiting a new command.

"Two rounds…."

The command runs right along the line: "Two rounds … two rounds … two rounds."

This is good! It is splendid! Only to think that a little time ago I wanted to step into the road swept by that machine-gun, in order to reassure my trembling men and avert a shameful dÉbÂcle which I dreaded!…

(Censored)

(Censored)

Little by little the firing dies away. We ourselves fire no longer, because we have consumed an enormous amount of ammunition; the nickel cases thickly cover the ground behind the pile of logs. It must be getting late; evening falls. Lassitude descends upon the woods and us. The craving for rest becomes insistent. There are gaps in our ranks which we only know and feel when calm succeeds the storm. The moment is come when the survivors gather together and count themselves, when they regain touch with each other, when closer contact seems in some sort to deaden the sense of loss.

The order to leave the wood reaches us at the usual time; it is as though we had not been fighting at all. We have checked the rush of the Boches; we have killed hundreds of them, have decimated, dispersed and demoralized their attacking battalions. They will not advance again this evening; our day's work is done.

And slowly, silently, through the woods on which the still peace of the autumn twilight now lies, we march and so regain the Mouilly road, the misty valley, and the Amblonville farm.

In the clear, cool night, to the accompaniment of many voices, the sections assemble and line up, and the companies are reformed. How attenuated, how mutilated they look!

My poor battalion! To-day's fight has once again cost us dearly. The 5th, which was so terribly cut up two weeks ago in the trenches at Vauxmarie, has also suffered cruelly again.

As for my own men, I know only too well those who are missing. Lauche, my sergeant, the only one left to me since Vauxmarie—it is always Vauxmarie!—I had seen him, as Vauthier put it, clawing the grass at the bottom of the ditch; I knew he was gone already. There was big Brunet also, and several others struck down at my side. And when I told the corporals to step forward and call out the rolls of their squads, voices responded which were not theirs. In each case a man of the "first class" or old soldier stepped forward to say:

"Corporal Regnard, wounded."

Or:

"Corporal Henry, killed."

"And Morand?"

"Corporal Morand, wounded," said an old soldier.

"Is it serious?"

"I do not think so, Lieutenant. He got a bullet in the arm as we were moving towards the pile of logs."

Not one sergeant! Not even a corporal! All those squads which become after a time a well-beloved family to those in charge of them, a family not to be parted from without sorrow and regret—here they are deprived of their leaders, to whom they look up constantly, who watch over them, who sustain them through long and difficult hours by the mere magic of their presence. I had known each one of them so well, those I had lost to-day! They were the men of my choice, men for whom a single word from me was sufficient, men who had never sought to shirk their duties, accepting their task whatever it was, and fulfilling it to the very best of their powers.

Others would take their places. What would they be like? And just when I had come to know these newcomers also, they would be struck down too, and would disappear, or perhaps my turn would come, or that of my men! Nothing lasting, nothing that the greatest of our efforts can make really ours, even for a day. The weariness of eternally beginning over again, the sadness of acquaintances ended with a mere farewell, all the minutes of our days and nights besieged by death, death which seizes on its victims in a second's space, which selects so blindly!

Unhappy above all men is he whose heart cherishes the memories of old affections and griefs through days unending! Close to me in the darkness someone is sobbing, sobs which cannot be choked down, which break out again and again, deep and heart-broken, bringing anguish to those who hear. I can see him who sobs, sitting in the ditch, hunched and huddled together beneath the burden of his sorrow. I know, too, why he sobs; I went up to him at once, and, as he knew me, he unburdened himself….

He had a brother who was in the half section he commanded. They had fought in the wood side by side and almost at the beginning of the business the other had received a bullet in the leg.

"He bled freely, Lieutenant; I helped him to walk; I wanted to dress his wounds. But the order came to retreat, because the Boches were advancing and were too many for us. I lifted him up and started to carry him. The bullets flew around us, many bullets. Then all at once it was as if he had been thrust forward, as if he had stumbled over a stump. He said nothing, but a second bullet had gone right through him. I had to support his whole weight then, and when I looked at him, his face was all white and his eyes staring. Still he recognized me and said: 'Jean, little Jean, leave me and get out of it.' I did not wish to do that, you may be sure. Was it possible to do such a thing? So I took him on my back, heavy as he was. I could not move quickly, you understand, yet even at that I seemed to hurt him. With every step I took he cried aloud in agony and did not cease pleading: 'You go on, Jean, leave me here, Jean;' and I went, yes, indeed, I went, when I saw the last blue coats disappearing over the hilltop and the Boches so close to us that I could hear the rustling of the leaves beneath their feet. It had been too much for my strength, you must understand; I had fallen to my knees and he slipped to the earth beside me. For the last time he said: 'You must go. You must not let yourself be killed because of me … let one of us remain alive at least.' I hung over him, I raised his head and kissed him, while all the time the bullets rained down, because the Boches had seen us and were firing at us. And then … I said good-bye to him … and then, and then I left him … and … and I left him out there … to die on the earth … in the midst of those savages….

"Is he dead, do you think? What has become of him? Where is he now? Perhaps out there he is calling for me, all alone in the night…. I do not know, I am here; perhaps I shall never know … oh, yes, I can see I shall never know, never…."

I have just told Porchon the story, and together we listen to those heartrending sobs.

Through the field behind us men are moving. We can hear the rustling of the dried leaves they are gathering; the falling flakes of earth from the roots they pull up; they have discovered some turnips. We remember then that so far we have eaten nothing.

It is cold. We shiver. We remain silent.

The silence is shattered by the sudden thunder of a gun. Right and left and all around other guns take up the challenge. Behind all the hilltops batteries settle down to steady work. Spurts of flame rend the darkness. Those that are far off are fugitive and faint, burning only for a second before darkness falls again; those close at hand are blindingly brilliant and still dance before the eye long after they have vanished. More and more rapid become the detonations, until all space seems filled with them. And those men who were lying down dozing, rise quickly and instinctively seek cover. Rumours are already flying about. Some say that the Boches have attacked with reinforcements under cover of darkness, that they are advancing very quickly, while our artillery is attempting to hold them back with a barrage. It is also said that we are going to counter-attack.

Counter-attack! After such a murderous, wearying day as the one we have lived through. When the exaltation of the men has died away, and they are conscious only of their aching limbs and the void in their stomachs! Counter-attack amid that darkness, with disorganized troops, without cadres, shattered! It would be both futile and cruel.

Yet if it should be necessary? If, with all the troops bivouacked in this region, there are still not enough to stay the rush of the Boches to-night? There are moments when one's duty exceeds one's powers, but when, nevertheless, it is imperative one should seek to fulfil that duty. If we go out there to-night, almost every one of us will remain out there for ever and for ever. Ah, well! And what of it? Shall we not go if we are ordered to do so?

The minutes fly and still no orders arrive. Little by little reflection convinces me that I have stupidly accepted for a reality what is no more than a mere rumour, arising, perhaps, from some words uttered by an unnerved man at the moment when the guns first began to speak.

Two days ago, when coming up to the outposts, we passed through the woods to reach the further edge of it. The sun was still high in the heavens, but despite the plenitude of light, the sections were separated, confused and mixed up because of the thick undergrowth. Through that undergrowth it would be necessary for the Boches to find a way, and with the darkness as another obstacle to their attack. They could never hope to get through; and, what is still more certain, they would never be such fools as to attempt to get through. If they did try, before an hour had passed they would find themselves in a hopeless mess, they would mistake their comrades for enemies, and start firing one upon the other. They know that well enough.

Our artillery is firing without doubt to cover us, to barrage the roads along which the enemy must retire, and prevent him taking up positions which he must not be allowed to occupy. I have been stupid.

At the cry of "Fall in!" which is unexpectedly issued, several of the men begin to grumble softly.

"Stop your silly tales!" I exclaim. "You know nothing of what is going to happen, and yet here you are growling already! Stop it!"

They hold their tongues and march wearily along behind me. I can feel their weariness even more keenly than my own. We are hungry and chronically in need of sleep. Each time we stop for a moment, men throw themselves down heavily beside the ditches.

We pass through Mouilly and turn to the right along a road hitherto unknown. There is a stream, dark forms bending over the water, the squelching of feet in the mud. The road rises and buries itself in the heart of some gloomy woods, but we come to a halt at the edge of them.

There we wait for daylight, acting as reserve to the advance post. I have to make certain that our connection with a company of the —th is established. I am to find certain elements of it further along the road. Two men go out, to return only after a long interval. They have seen no one at all, and are quite confident there is no one before us.

Orders countermanded. Fall in! We go back towards Mouilly. One suspects lights behind the closed shutters. I knock at a door, and when it opens I learn that the whole company which should have been out at the advance post is there in the village! Where on earth is the phenomenon who has command of this medley? From house to house I go, to find him at last consuming a roast chicken, to which he invites me without ceremony. I receive the greatest shock of my life to find that it is L——.

"Hallo, old man! You can certainly boast of your cuisine, but is this what you call the advance posts?"

The meeting delights me, for L—— is another of my friends of the days before the war, a jovial rascal, who "cares nothing for nobody" and proves it. The information I give him—not a single guard at the approaches to the village, not a patrol on the road, not even a sentinel—leaves him thoughtful for at least two seconds. He says simply:

"I gave the orders. I suppose they weren't carried out. I must go out and see about it in a minute."

And forthwith he again sets to on the bird, happy, comfortable and serene. He really is a good fellow, but what a strange commander for a company!

Having left him, I hurry back through the village and overtake my men at the moment when the column halts opposite the last houses of the village, on the already familiar road to the Amblonville farm. The supply wagons are waiting for us there, and the issue of rations takes place without the usual disputing and grumbling. Huge fires flame clear and high. The men squat about them, bathing their hands in the warmth, watching with idle eyes the steaming pots suspended above the brazier, roasting their faces, chests and legs, while the cold night behind them freezes their backs. We receive at last greasy steaks which burn our fingers; we drink coffee, hot but innocent of sugar; the grateful warmth of which runs through our whole bodies. Under these beneficent influences the aspect of affairs brightens a little. We may even be able to sleep a short while. My watch tells me it is only half-past one, so there is still plenty of time before day-break. We stretch ourselves out on the earth, ignoring the fact that our clothes want to freeze to us. How icy are the nights towards the end of September! Heavy eyelids droop over eyes which retain a vision of the jumping and leaping flames of the camp fires. And sleep so grateful to our weariness steals down gently, stilling the tumults in our hearts. A sleep well earned….

"Get up!"

There is to be no sleep for us to-night; to-night we must march. Our legs do so from sheer habit, we accompany them. Here before us is a hill; we ascend it; it is steep. Here now are fields; the earth is very soft; everywhere there are holes which cause one to stumble or to fall prone with all one's weight, which is increased by the weight of the equipment.

Where are we going? No one knows.

Endless, these fields … apparently we are never going to arrive at our destination. Only the leader of the detachment knows where that is, and apparently he has gone and lost himself somewhere. We wander at large. The ranks break up; we march in groups, in a herd, a herd of most miserable animals. To the right: to the left: straight ahead. Our legs move onwards from sheer habit. We are out of the cultivated fields now and passing over land covered with broom, stunted pines, and brambles which merge finally into dense woods. For a long time we follow their edge, a curiously capricious edge. It brings us to the side of a road. We halt there; that is our destination.

The men, already half asleep, positively fall down. In a moment their numbed, overwearied bodies are at rest.

Scattered dark masses: a deep silence broken occasionally by loud snores.