"Forward!" cries some soldier, and then all resume the onward race
to perdition with increasing speed.
* * * * * *
"Where's Bertrand?" comes the laborious complaint of one of the
foremost runners. "There! Here!" He had stooped in passing over a
wounded man, but he leaves him quickly, and the man extends his arms
towards him and seems to sob.
It is just at the moment when he rejoins us that we hear in front of
us, coming from a sort of ground swelling, the crackle of a
machine-gun. It is a moment of agony--more serious even than when we
were passing through the flaming earthquake of the barrage. That
familiar voice speaks to us across the plain, sharp and horrible.
But we no longer stop. "Go on, go on!"
Our panting becomes hoarse groaning, yet still we hurl ourselves
toward the horizon.
"The Boches! I see them!" a man says suddenly. "Yes--their heads,
there--above the trench--it's there, the trench, that line. It's
close, Ah, the hogs!"
We can indeed make out little round gray caps which rise and then
drop on the ground level, fifty yards away, beyond a belt of dark
earth, furrowed and humped. Encouraged they spring forward, they who
now form the group where I am. So near the goal, so far unscathed,
shall we not reach it? Yes, we will reach it! We make great strides
and no longer hear anything. Each man plunges straight ahead,
fascinated by the terrible trench, bent rigidly forward, almost
incapable of turning his head to right or to left.
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