“I ought to have gone myself....”
“Wait, there they are.”
Marseille and Grizard are coming back; they are only ten feet from the trench.
But rash to madness, in their absolute unconsciousness of danger now that their mission is accomplished, they take no thought of themselves, and instead of sliding under the barbed wire, as they went, to get into the dugout Grizard stands up and shouts,
“Let the balloon go up.”
At the same moment, a shower of bullets!
Grizard rebounded, twisted himself in a final contortion, and fell on his back while Marseille jumped into the trench shouting to his comrade,
“Haven’t you finished playing the man-serpent?”
Then, when he saw that his comrade was absolutely dead, he burst out in wild anger: