“Nom de Dieu ... Nom de Dieu ... de nom de Dieu.... If that isn’t too bad.... He needn’t stay there, the rascal. I’m going to get him.”
The explosion came, a frightful one; the bombs had just exploded.
“To the sap ... to the sap. It’s going to rain stones.”
The pile of stones is thrown up with tremendous violence. Blocks are thrown into the trench.
The smoke blows away and behind the scattered ruins we see two machine guns in position with their gun crews killed beside them, and all their material for fortifications and gas-making apparatus.
The sub-lieutenant jumps on the parapet,
“To the bayonet, forward, enfants, get the tools.”
And before the enemy had recovered from his stupefaction, our men are on the guns, which they get and bring back in a hurry under a storm of bullets and grenades.
When we are back from this sudden attack, we call the roll. Several fail to answer, and among them my friend of the day before.