I approach....
Some steps in front of what was the “Servian” trench is the beginning of Hell.
Men, officers, and stretcher-bearers are crouching in holes in half-blown-in saps, waiting for a lull which for several hours has not come.
The sick and wounded, haggard and frightened, do not dare to make a move outside the precarious shelters which even the smallest shell would destroy and bury them alive.
A Zouave, with a swarthy face and a profile like a medallion, gesticulates and shouts. A long gash cuts his forehead from the arch of his eyebrows to the ear; the blood flows thick and black on his cheek and runs into his beard. He waves a rag on the end of a stick.
“The noubah! the noubah! It is the noubah! They are going to dance. You’ll dance with me, won’t you?”
And he runs towards the bombs, laughing a frightful laugh which makes me shudder. Poor fool! A hole opens under his feet. He falls. Perhaps the fall will save him from a mortal wound.
Some Colonials, fatalists, accustomed to so many other storms—for two years they have been in the hottest part of all the engagements—talk coolly under a dugout which is still intact. They squat on their crossed legs and smoke peacefully. The smoke from their pipes, rising in slow easy curves, seems to set at defiance the frightful cataclysm which rages around us.
A stretcher-bearer, a priest, whom I think I recognize, is dressing a wounded man who has escaped in some way from the furnace and who faints in his arms. Intent on his bandaging he seems to have no idea of the Hell two steps away. He gives him the same care with the same imperturbable calm that he would in the absolute security of some faraway ambulance.
A staff-officer, a captain, is observing the ground through a glass. As is my case, he is carrying an urgent order which cannot wait.