Our shelter was composed of a number of small wooden boxes, half covered with earth. In the bluish light of night, our outlines looked enormous. The moon lighted up, with a vague gleam, this devastated space, where the shattered, broken-branched trees added their cataleptic attitudes to the general desolation. Around the shelters, many of which were no more than tangled rubbish, about fifteen dead bodies were lying crushed on the ground. In the background was the Lizerne Mill. A jagged outline could be seen standing out against the sky.
Our men were wandering about trying to find a place. At the bottom of a hole, the yellowish light of a candle could be seen, but it was soon extinguished. The ambulance men were burying the nearest of the dead. The Chaplain, who looked like a dark shadow in the moonlight, offered up a prayer. It was in this spot that we were to live for the next three days.
Our men huddled together on planks of wood with a slight layer of straw. Each one rolled himself up in his blanket and wedged himself into his corner. Everyone was silent. Through the open door could be seen the pale blue of the sky with two stars shining in it. In the distance, the big cannons were booming all the time. We tried to go on sleeping as long as possible, stiff though we were. The sun had already risen. The square of the sky which could be seen through the open door had gradually become a square of light. Death had not come to us during the night.
The sun was warm and we lay down on the bare ground behind the shelter, like so many lizards. The kindly golden light chased away all bitterness and fatigue. Under our feet, the bodies which had only just been buried gave a sensation of elasticity to the ground. The full daylight took away the phantasmagorial appearance of everything, and our shelters appeared in their true aspect, wretched boxes, made of pinewood half covered with tufts of grass.
The ground all around us was hollowed out in enormous craters, several of which were quite close to us. A field all yellow with turnips in flower crowned the summit, the rest was nothing but brown earth.
A few men at work passed along by the hedge. One by one they ran along, bending nearly double. They passed near to us, making straight for the top of the hill. Little clouds of dust, made by bullets, kept rising at their feet. Their coats could be seen mingling with the yellowish-green of the turnip field. They then disappeared among the flowers.
Towards two o'clock the cannonading commenced. The seventy-fives thundered without ceasing. Our seven-fives accompanied them. Very soon the Germans began to do their part, and their tens exploded with a noise that rent the air. Next came the wild-beast yelling of the shrapnels rushing on to the batteries, the dull noise of the heavy block-trains, the whizzing of our own shells, which passed quite near to us and then went on rapidly to lacerate our enemies in their dens. Then came the bell-like sound of the English howitzers, the fantastical dance of the seventy-five shells, striking their wild chords on the trenches, the yelling whistle of the heavy shells which soon began to fall on the plateau. They exploded near to us, with a heavy crashing din. The rubbish whirled round in the air with harmonious songs. The bursting of certain German shrapnels was accompanied by a hubbub like the cries of wounded men. And then once more came the big shells. The sky was darkened by the clouds of black dust which rose up in the air like waterspouts.
The planks of wood were riddled with fragments. The cannonading then diminished and finally ceased. What was going to happen next? We listened anxiously and then, suddenly, a machine-gun was to be heard. This meant the assault, and our hearts were full of anguish. We looked out into the distance, straight in front of us, sure, however, that we should see nothing. Then, all at once, by the communication trench, a whole mass of wounded men arrived. They were pale and panting and many of them drenched to the bones.
"Oh the wretches, the wretches, they had us, Doctor! It was horrible. We had scarcely left the trench, when they mowed us down. Some of our men plunged into the water to save themselves, into that water over yonder, the stream, I don't know what you call it, and they have been drowned in that rot. Others who were wounded and were trying to get back into our lines were finished off by them, finished off, Doctor, by their machine-guns, men who were dragging themselves along on the ground."
The machine-gun was silent now. More and more wounded arrived, in little groups, pursued by the shooting. One of them had his face red with blood. There was blood and mud everywhere, and on all sides moans of pain. One poor fellow was sitting in a hole, with bullets in both feet and his arm shattered. He was holding his arm as one holds a baby, rocking it and uttering incomprehensible things, as he shook his head. There were about forty lying either at the back of the shelters or inside, pêle-mêle, amongst our men. They gradually became more calm and were quiet. Those who could go on farther started off one by one. The one who had been crying was now shivering in a corner. The darkness came on again gradually. The assault of the 135th had failed.