The first shell fell with a terrible
splitting of the air, which seemed to tear itself in two; and other
whistles were already converging upon us when its explosion uplifted
the ground at the head of the detachment in the heart of the
magnitude of night and rain, revealing gesticulations upon a sudden
screen of red.
No doubt they had seen us, thanks to the rockets, and had trained
their fire on us.
The men hurled and rolled themselves towards the little flooded
ditch that they had dug, wedging, burying, and immersing themselves
in it, and placed the blades of the shovels over their heads. To
right, to left, in front and behind, shells burst so near that every
one of them shook us in our bed of clay; and it became soon one
continuous quaking that seized the wretched gutter, crowded with men
and scaly with shovels, under the strata of smoke and the falling
fire. The splinters and debris crossed in all directions with a
network of noise over the dazzling field. No second passed but we
all thought what some stammered with their faces in the earth,
"We're done, this time!"
A little in front of the place where I am. a shape has arisen and
cried, "Let's be off!" Prone bodies half rose out of the shroud of
mud that dripped in tails and liquid rags from their limbs, and
these deathful apparitions cried also, "Let's go!" They were on
their knees, on all-fours, crawling towards the way of retreat: "Get
on, allez, get on!"
But the long file stayed motionless, and the frenzied complaints
were in vain.
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