Corporal Bertrand and I had had the luck to find
in front of us, just as the red rocket went up and before it burst
into light, a shell-hole, where a broken trestle was steeped in the
mud. We flattened ourselves against the edge of the hole, buried
ourselves in the mud as much as possible, and the poor skeleton of
rotten wood concealed us. The jet of the machine-gun crossed several
times. We heard a piercing whistle in the middle of each report, the
sharp and violent sound of bullets that went into the earth, and
dull and soft blows as well, followed by groans, by a little cry,
and suddenly by a sound like the heavy snoring of a sleeper, a sound
which slowly ebbed. Bertrand and I waited, grazed by the horizontal
hail of bullets that traced a network of death an inch or so above
us and sometimes scraped our clothes, driving us still deeper into
the mud, nor dared we risk a movement which might have lifted a
little some part of our bodies. The machine-gun at last held its
peace in an enormous silence. A quarter of an hour later we two slid
out of the shell-hole, and crawling on our elbows we fell at last
like bundles into our listening-post. It was high time, too, for at
that moment the moon shone out. We were obliged to stay in the
bottom of the trench till morning, and then till evening, for the
machine-gun swept the approaches without pause. We could not see the
prostrate bodies through the loop-holes of the post, by reason of
the steepness of the ground--except, just on the level of our field
of vision, a lump which appeared to be the back of one of them.
Pages:
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288