" We go forward, so weary
that we can only see the ground.
I am alone. Where is Paradis? He must have lain down in some hole,
and perhaps I did not hear his call. I meet Marthereau. "I'm looking
where I can sleep, I've been on guard," he says.
"I, too; let's look together."
"What's all the row and to-do?" says Marthereau. A mingled hubbub of
trampling and voices overflows from the communication trench that
goes off here. "The communication trenches are full of men. Who are
you?"
One of those with whom we are suddenly mixed up replies, "We're the
Fifth Battalion." The newcomers stop. They are in marching order.
The one that spoke sits down for a breathing space on the curves of
a sand-bag that protrudes from the line. He wipes his nose with the
back of his sleeve.
"What are you doing here? Have they told you to come?"
"Not half they haven't told us. We're coming to attack. We're going
yonder, right up." With his head he indicates the north. The
curiosity with which we look at them fastens on to a detail. "You've
carried everything with you?"--"We chose to keep it, that's all."
"Forward!" they are ordered. They rise and proceed, incompletely
awake, their eyes puffy, their wrinkles underlined. There are young
men among them with thin necks and vacuous eyes, and old men; and in
the middle, ordinary ones. They march with a commonplace and pacific
step. What they are going to do seems to us, who did it last night,
beyond human strength.
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