In a hollow in the terrain we discover a German corpse, or more precisely, a skeleton dressed in an infantryman's uniform, a rusty rifle at his side—that is the thing in question.
The body must have been there a long time——
THE POILU BOULEVARDIER.
December, 1915.
Day has not yet come—the weather is misty, and the rain has stopped. From time to time a rifle shot——
They are working lively to set a wire entanglement between the line of craters and a support trench. It has got to be done fast because daybreak will soon be here. The men sense the completion of the task, and hurry to finish it. They joke and seem to forget they are at a place the worst on the whole front.
The quiet astonishes them; neither of them find it natural——
Suddenly a heavy explosion—a great trembling and a large spout of earth rises in the air a hundred yards from us——
"There it is—a boche camouflet!"[20]
At the same moment the well-known serenade—from all sides comes a rain of projectiles: minnenwerfer, shells and bullets. A man, wounded, cries like an infant with its throat cut——