“Nun jetz Vorwaerts!”
We go back along the road I came by this morning. The artillery fire has let up a little. As far as the crossing of the roads from Biaches to Herbècourt, we march along without much risk, but beyond there we are taken anew by a crossfire from the batteries of Barleux and Hem, and by the fire of a cursed machine gun. It seems to be hidden in the ruins of Flaucourt, but our artillery has not been able to spot it yet and silence it.
My twelve prisoners march along ahead silently with bowed shoulders. They understand that they must march along peacefully at the same pace as the four big fellows who form the escort, and that once out of this zone their lives are saved.
We reach without incident the old road which cuts the Le Signal woods, and get back on the road from Herbècourt to Éclusier. An orchard here which before the attack was a signal station has not suffered much. The dugouts are whole and I stop my troop to look after my leg which has begun to bleed.
A little while ago, as I was crossing some barbed wire entanglements, I felt a tear but I thought it was of no consequence. But now the blood has soaked through the drawers and trousers. I tear off a strip from my package of dressings and put on a bandage which stops the bleeding until we reach the next dressing station.
I have hardly put my equipment on again than I hear beyond me in the road an infernal noise of scrap iron, oaths and cries.
I jump up.
It is our movable kitchen driven by Gondran. Yesterday, it went ahead to Herbècourt on premature orders. To-day, it was right in the barrage. Now that the long expected lull has come, the lieutenant is sending it back to Froissy.
On the way back Gondran met four wounded men who were getting to the rear only with the greatest difficulty, and he took them on his rickety wagon. This torpedo, with its big sheet-iron smokestack which is full of holes and twisted, doesn’t look much like an ambulance. Instead, one might think it was some archaic engine of war of the Gauls.