For the second time I was astonished to find myself so calm. I could not realise that in so short a time (what are two hours?) there was going to be a wild rush, a hand-to-hand fight, hideous and disfigured corpses everywhere, and perhaps death for me. I had only the fixed idea that everything was going well. I was acutely conscious that I was responsible for the lives of fifty men.
Though wounded at the beginning of the attack, and sole survivor of all the officers of the company and of a neighbouring company of the 114th regiment of the line, I was, nevertheless, still able to carry on till 8 o’clock at night.
At 9 o’clock A.M. I precipitated the ammoniacal solution and all the men soaked their pads in it. Everyone had his bomb. While I was finishing these last preparations shells and bombs seemed to crush the enemy’s lines. The noise was deafening and the smoke suffocating and blinding. I should like to shut my eyes and pass in review each scene which followed, forgetting none. In a few moments I consider that I lived the sum total of a lifetime.
At a quarter to ten all were lined up, pack on back. The section of Engineers stuck to the communicating trench so as not to hinder our movements. I placed myself in the centre and took out my watch; still ten minutes to go! I called in a loud voice, “Five minutes,” “Two minutes.” I had a stealthy look at the men and I saw on their faces so tense an expression, something so fixed, that they seemed to be in a trance.
As I cried, “Only half a minute more!” I saw the left of the company starting off; they had some mètres start of me. At all costs we must keep touch, so I shouted, “Forward,” and ran straight at the German line, without seeing or hearing anything. I had a vague consciousness that the “75” guns had not yet increased their range, but we were no longer our own masters. Thousands of men, their minds fixed on the same purpose, rushed forward blindly.
As I arrived at the first German entanglement I turned round. Everyone had followed; the men were at my heels. A second later we were leaping over the parapet of the enemy’s first line. I yelled, “Don’t get into the communicating trench; the trench is empty, except for a few stragglers; get on and seize the second line.”
The blue cloaks bounded forward together and the bayonets shone under a burning sun, for there was not a cloud in the sky.
Now, with our heads down, we entered the zone of Hell.