* * * * * *
It was four nights ago that they were all killed together. I
remember the night myself indistinctly--it is like a dream. We were
on patrol--they, I, Mesnil Andre, and Corporal Bertrand; and
our business was to identify a new German listening-post marked by
the artillery observers. We left the trench towards midnight and
crept down the slope in line, three or four paces from each other.
Thus we descended far into the ravine, and saw, lying before our
eyes, the embankment of their International Trench. After we had
verified that there was no listening-post in this slice of the
ground we climbed back, with infinite care. Dimly I saw my neighbors
to right and left, like sacks of shadow, crawling, slowly sliding,
undulating and rocking in the mud and the murk, with the projecting
needle in front of a rifle. Some bullets whistled above us, but they
did not know we were there, they were not looking for us. When we
got within sight of the mound of our line, we took a breather for a
moment; one of us let a sigh go, another spoke. Another turned round
bodily, and the sheath of his bayonet rang out against a stone.
Instantly a rocket shot redly up from the International Trench. We
threw ourselves flat on the ground, closely, desperately, and waited
there motionless, with the terrible star hanging over us and
flooding us with daylight, twenty-five or thirty yards from our
trench. Then a machine-gun on the other side of the ravine swept the
zone where we were.
Pages:
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287