There is no word, sound or colour that can give an idea of it. To prevent our advance the Germans had made a barrier of fire, and we had to go through a sort of suffocating vapour. We went through sheaves of fire, from which burst forth percussion and time shells at such short intervals that the soil opened every moment under our feet. I saw, as in a dream, tiny silhouettes, drunk with battle, charging through the smoke.
The terrified Germans, caught between their own artillery fire and our bayonets, sprang up from everywhere; some cried for mercy; others turned round like madmen, whilst others again threw themselves upon us to drive us back.
Shells had made ravages in the ranks. I saw groups of five or six crushed and mown down. I caught a momentary glimpse of Petit, the corporal, at the head of a group of men, and I forgot everything else and shouted to him, “Go it: bravo, Petit!” His Herculean figure, moulded in a woollen jersey, was standing on a hillock, wielding his rifle like a windmill. Careless of shot and shell, his terrible bayonet running with blood, he seemed the very incarnation of the war. All my life I shall see him, bareheaded, covered with blood and sweat, leading the others on to carnage; and the blue sky behind.
My section and I kept pressing on, and we were now within a few mètres of the last of the German lines. At every step grey uniforms now surged. I discharged my revolver to right and left. Cries and moans rose and fell in the infernal din of that struggle.
In a second we should be occupying the enemy’s last positions. What remained of my section followed me blindly. I put my foot on the parapet and cried, “Forward, lads, here we are!” then I felt as though someone had suddenly given me a brutal blow in the back with the butt-end of a rifle. I let go my revolver and the chedite bomb, which I had in my left hand, and I rolled to the bottom of a shell hole.
I was hit!
In a flash I remembered a phrase of my orderly’s, overheard by chance yesterday, “If anything happens to the little lieutenant he won’t be left behind,” and a moment later this brave fellow, himself wounded in the arm, was at my side, and with two or three others, carried me to the trench. In front of us nothing was left, not a defence, not a wire entanglement. We had carried the German lines to their uttermost limits.
We at once set to work to dig ourselves in, whilst the men who were not digging kept a look-out. We asked ourselves from what direction the Germans would try to outflank us, for we knew nothing about the trenches that had been carried. All at once I saw two of them coming out of a little communicating trench with their bayonets at the charge. I blew out the brains of the first; the second, a veritable lad of about sixteen, had a terrified expression which I shall never forget. He yelled, and his strident cries made me shudder; but my pistol went off, and he fell on the ground on his face.
During the whole of the attack I had not for an instant seen my company commander, and I wondered where he was. My colour-sergeant told me that the Major and he had been killed, that Lieutenant Desessart was badly wounded and that Lieutenant Règues and I were the only officers left in the company. Règues took command, and, seated on the parapet, superintended the preparations for defence. The guns were silent.... Alone the whistle of bullets was heard, and warning cries were raised: “Look out on the left; look out on the right; they are coming from such and such a trench.”