Phoebe and Lidoire, the two lean hacks which drag it, are marked and cut by the harness and their legs are bent from pulling this badly balanced weight.
Suddenly, the bombardment, which seemed to have ceased, begins again. First two shots, then repeated more and more rapidly, and only in our direction. A shower of splinters beats around us, wounds the two horses and cuts the reins.
They run away at a mad pace with wild plunges through the fields. Gondran is wounded in the hands and is helpless; he clings to the smokestack; the wounded are tossed about. They shout from the pain of their re-opened wounds and hang on as best they can to the handle of the kettle.
The speed of the two horses becomes giddy. They head for the quarry at a gallop. A hundred yards more and they will inevitably fall into the canal, a fall of more than fifty yards. That would mean their utter destruction.
I have no choice of ways in which to save the five men.
With six shots from my revolver I kill one horse and throw the other to the ground. The kitchen comes to a stop twenty yards from the cliff.
But danger is not averted by any manner of means. Shells follow us. From some faraway place an observer must have taken us for a “75” getting into position and he tries to destroy us. We abandon the kitchen which is now almost completely done for, and as fast as we can, saved by some miracle from the shells, which double in intensity, we throw ourselves into the first trench we find.
I find the Territorials and the provost at the great quarry and I hand my prisoners over to him.
It is only a step from there to headquarters. I arrive at six o’clock.
Captain Chatain is outside the door, and I give him the reply he is waiting for.