“They would only have to add a little more,” they say, “to make a ‘75’ instead of a machine gun.”
“The periscope may be of use for something. You have to try half an hour before you can see anything. I like my eyes better.”
The ammunition wagons are installed and opened; the belts are ready; the gun layer, the loader, and the crew are at their stations.
The lieutenant makes the rounds of each section, inspecting the guns, testing the mechanism, trying the weight of the munitions, taking account of everything and looking each man in the face.
“We are the last company organized,” he says. “You know that the machine gunners should be the flower of the army; don’t forget it. It is our first engagement. Try to show that we’re there a little.”
This short unpretentious harangue produces its effect on the men, who smile as they listen to it. They are not nervous now, but only slightly curious. They are not sorry to put their toys to the test at last, and to shoot their projectiles at something besides the moving figures in the training camps.
When the inspection is over and the final instructions have been given, we return to the commandant’s station, and stretch out to sleep on the reserve caissons which protect us from the mud. Rifts in the clouds reveal the stars. It will be fine to-morrow. But waiting is cold, very cold, and it is impossible to sleep under such a wind. We talk.
“You’re going to hear a concert. They haven’t massed more than three hundred guns in all, from the ‘75’ to the heavy artillery, on our fifteen hundred yard front for nothing. Have you seen the ‘150’ mortars? They have some muzzles.”
Dawn appears. A light fog rises from the ground and seems thickest at the side of the canal where the German positions are. It is the coldest hour of the day and the earth of our dugout is as hard as iron; it is frozen. Instinctively I let down the ear-flaps of my cap which until now I have kept under my helmet.
“Are you cold?”