"Right you are!" I say to Poterloo.
Adjutant Barthe, informed of our project, wags his head up and down,
and lowers his eyelids in token that he does not see.
We hoist ourselves out of the trench, and behold us both, upright,
on the Bethune road!
It is the first time I have walked there during the day. I have
never seen it, except from afar, the terrible road that we have so
often traveled or crossed in leaps, bowed down in the darkness, and
under the whistling of missiles.
"Well, are you coming, old man?"
After some paces, Poterloo has stopped in the middle of the road,
where the fog like cotton-wool unravels itself into pendent
fragments, and there he dilates his sky-blue eyes and half opens his
scarlet mouth.
"Ah, la, la! Ah, la, la!" he murmurs. When I turn to him he points
to the road, shakes his head and says, "This is it, Bon Dieu, to
think this is it! This bit where we are, I know it so well that if I
shut my eyes I can see it as it was, exactly. Old chap, it's awful
to see it again like that. It was a beautiful road, planted all the
way along with big trees.
"And now, what is it? Look at it--a sort of long thing without a
soul--sad, sad. Look at these two trenches on each side, alive; this
ripped-up paving, bored with funnels; these trees uprooted, split,
scorched, broken like faggots, thrown all ways, pierced by
bullets--look, this pock-marked pestilence, here! Ah, my boy, my
boy, you can't imagine how it is disfigured, this road!" And he goes
forward, seeing some new amazement at every step.
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