“A ‘155’ square in the chest. It killed two officers and five men. I’ve a splinter in my thigh and one in my shoulder.”
The Attack [See page 225]
We walk along side by side as fast as we can, but slowly nevertheless. We can’t do anything else. We get tangled in the barbed wire; we stumble over corpses; we fall headlong into shell holes. The mud covers the mica in my mask.
A hundred yards in front of us the company reaches its objective, the hill and the Boche blockhouse.
Two sections have rushed in and are already in action.
Two more sections throw themselves into a crater more to the left opposite a clump of trees which is still held by the enemy.
Suddenly there is a terrific explosion, and the most violent clap of thunder that can be imagined sends us head over heels.
The ground trembles, the earth cracks, and through the crevices oozes a black smoke which envelops us. Everything is black. Are we entombed?
A mine has been exploded near us in the entrance. They shout; they cry. Belts of cartridges burst in the furnace. A swarm of bees seems to fly over our heads. The blockhouse has just blown up with our two sections. It was mined.