“That’s it; we are there. Fire on the reserves, farther, the length of the embankment. Cease firing, stop it, stop firing. We are there.... Cease firing!”
Just as he shouts this order a shell, the last one—the third on the same spot—falls, bursts, and buries the gun and its heroic crew.
“M ...! The swine! Can’t they see that it is finished?”
Heavily and mournfully we make toll of the dead. Comrades pay their last respects to their comrades. They take their letters and keepsakes, and arrange the bodies for their last resting place as best they can.
The order to go back is given.
For two hours we make our way through the communication trench, now only a stream of mud in which we sink to our ankles.
We advance, dejected, silent, heavy with fatigue, depressed by the thought of those we have left behind, whom we shall never see again, as was our wont, even yesterday at the cantonment.
The lieutenant is in the lead, leaning on his baton, silently, chewing on his eternal cigarette.
We finally reach the end of the trench at Froissy and come out on the main road.
In spite of their long hours of fatigue and the sleepless nights, the men suddenly seem less weary.