“Tell the adjutant of the section to occupy the crater,” comes the order.
By means of the half-destroyed communication trench I reach the section which I find burrowing in shelters built hastily out of whatever came handiest and deliver my order.
The adjutant takes it and turns pale.
“All right, but there’s no great chance of our getting there.”
Their hearts throb, and they look at each other. It is true that it is necessary, but on the parapet between the trench and the crater, no longer the slightest protection, shells fall like hail and without a let-up. They hesitate.
As if he had foreseen this, the lieutenant had followed behind me. He reads their hesitation in their faces and is about to say something to overcome it when the blast of the major’s whistle sounds. It is the signal. The wave jumps from the parallels and dashes forward. We must fire.
Our three guns have already begun their rattle and are spraying the terrain before the enemy’s trenches close to the ground, probing the loopholes, mowing the parapets, and cutting the last of the barbed wire.
The fourth gun ought to fire too; it must. Then, quietly, with that unusual coolness which characterizes him, the lieutenant clambers over the parapet.