When we can no longer see clearly, we hear down there the murmur of
a command, which comes nearer and rings loud--"Second half-section!
Muster!" We fall in; it is the call.
"Gee up!" says the corporal. We are set in motion. In front of the
tool-depot there is a halt and trampling. To each is given a spade
or pickax. An N.C.O. presents the handles in the gloom: "You, a
spade; there, hop it! You a spade, too; you a pick. Allons, hurry up
and get off."
We leave by the communication trench at right angles to our own, and
straight ahead towards the changeful frontier, now alive and
terrible.
Up in the somber sky, the strong staccato panting of an invisible
aeroplane circles in wide descending coils and fills infinity. In
front, to right and left, everywhere, thunderclaps roll with great
glimpses of short-lived light in the dark-blue sky.
______
[note 1:] The popular and international name for a French soldier.
Its literal meaning is "hairy, shaggy," but the word has conveyed
for over a century the idea of the virility of a Samson, whose
strength lay in his locks.--Tr.
[note 2:] 6250 miles.
[note 3:] Pourvu que les civils tiennent. In the early days of the
war it was a common French saying that victory was certain--"if the
civilians hold out."--Tr.
3
The Return
RELUCTANTLY the ashen dawn is bleaching the still dark and formless
landscape. Between the declining road on the right that falls into
the gloom, and the black cloud of the Alleux Wood--where we hear the
convoy teams assembling and getting under way--a field extends.
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