Our hands clasp in a fraternal farewell. In three minutes the Boches will be on us. They will kill us pitilessly. We hold our revolvers ready, fingers on the trigger. At least we won’t go alone.
They stand up now and shout. They are going to make a dash.
“Vorwaerts! Gottfordam isch!”
The harsh sound of the command and the oath comes to us clearly.
They dash forward to take the crater.
But almost at the end, at scarcely fifty yards, the four guns of our two sections, hidden in the shell holes, receive them with a withering fire.
The Boche line cracks, breaks; groups of men fall in heaps, like puppets.
Our guns fire constantly.
The Boche line wavers, hesitates, the ranks thin out. We can hear the dead sound of the falling bodies.