I started off then to crawl with a speed which astonished myself, using my feet, shoulders and elbows to help me along. I arrived at the spot where I had left Stivalet, and in no time we had jumped back into our trench. My clothes were so caked with mud that they stuck to me like a jersey. I made a report to Maugenot, whom I found asleep. On the table of the dug-out was a note from the Major. The attack was to take place to-morrow. The day would be given over to a minute reconnaissance of the sector, and everything would be ready for the attack, to take place probably during the night of the 8th-9th.
8th May, 1915.—Unless counter-ordered the attack is to take place to-morrow at six in the morning, after four consecutive hours of shell fire. There are a thousand guns behind us, one for every fifty mètres of terrain to be battered.
Nothing happened during the morning. New bombs were given out, and each man was to have at least one. From two in the afternoon the artillery corrected its shooting, which is equivalent in ordinary times to a very violent bombardment.
From my parapet I followed the phases of this correction. The redan on the Lens road blew up at two o’clock; the defences before my trench were knocked to bits. At this moment, 6.40, the artillery fired a little short. The men in the trench could not get on with their dinners; they were covered with earth and little bits of steel, and the water fatigue had some splinters sent among them—two men of the 5th were wounded.
I have got for my section 7 asphyxiating bombs, 9 Beszzi bombs, 48 hand grenades and 5 terrible chedite bombs, which I have primed myself, and of which I intend to carry two.
What a carnage is being prepared for to-morrow! I remembered the prophecy of Father Johannes, “Only the great princes and the great captains will be buried; there will be so many dead and wounded that the bodies will be burnt on pyres whose flames will mount to the skies.”
9th May, 1915, 4.30 a.m.—I am ordered to line up my men. A company of Engineers has joined us in order to excavate a communicating trench as soon as we have cleared out. Far away on the left—probably from the English lines—the guns are firing without interruption. It sounds like a hoarse roar.
5.15 and no order to attack has been received; it seems long in coming.
The guns were still thundering on the left, but ours were silent. I would give a lot to know!
Seven o’clock.—Orders have come; we are to attack at 10 o’clock precisely. There is to be no signal; all our watches have been synchronised. We are all to start together from our trenches at the same time. We shelled the enemy violently for an hour, but, as that was too little, we are going to shell them again from 9 to 10. The big winged bombs made a thunderous din; we could see them rise in the air like shuttlecocks and fall lightly to earth again. They looked as though they were going to rebound, but they burst at once, each like a miniature volcano in eruption.