“The third wave! Hum! That’s not good. The first wave is a promenade, nothing in front. The second goes over then, but the third has all the shells, for it’s right in the barrage.”
“And after?”
“After?”
“Say, you must think you’re in a café at La Cannebière. Perhaps you’d like to order an ice. This is war, you know.”
“I see it now.”
The distributions are finished at ten o’clock and we move towards our positions behind the second battalion.
The men have taken off their belts and all their useless equipment and are in jackets with their tent canvas crosswise.
The diluvial rain which has been falling for some days has stopped this evening. The sky is as black as ink and we can’t see a yard in front of us.
The paths were already muddy, but now they have disappeared after whole regiments have gone towards the lines without interruption for some hours. When we reach the communication trench it is no longer a trench at all, but a stream of fluid mud, where we sink over our leggings. We have to use our hands to pull out our legs when they get stuck.
“Well, mon vieux, if we have to go clear to Berlin at this pace, we won’t get there before to-morrow morning!...”