It’s going to succeed at last.
This time the artillery preparation won’t be insufficient.
We have guns, little and big, of every kind, of every caliber, from the little howitzers set low on their plates with their large muzzles like those we used to see on the terrace of the Invalides up to the great naval guns, long, lean and sharp, like a cigar, monumental guns of unheard-of size mounted on gigantic platforms, with covered turrets, new and odd foreign cannon, long as a train and mounted on rails.
And there are projectiles such as the wildest imagination could not dream of. Whole fields of shells of every caliber from the small “75” which now seem like playthings to the enormous “400’s” which can be moved only by gigantic jacks.
And over this immense sea of shells they have stretched a green colored tarpaulin, dotted with great yellow spots, with great chalky streaks which in the distance give them the appearance of a field furrowed by tracks.
We have been encamped in a wood for three days under tents beside batteries of heavy artillery waiting for the order to take up our positions for the attack.
And for these three days our constant occupation has been to strengthen and set up our huts again, for every shot from the great neighboring gun drags them from the ground by the tremendous displacement of air.
That is all right in the daytime. This Penelope-like work relieves the monotony and serves as a counter irritant to nervousness. But the occupation is less interesting at night.
Finally, about nine o’clock one evening, a great uproar arose in the companies on the other side from us and by degrees, like a rising sea, reached us—we are in our usual place at the extreme wing of the battalion.