"Where are you going?"
"To occupy that village."
"Impossible, my dear fellow!"
"How's that?"
"We've just come from there! It's raining bommmbs!"
Our halt lasts an eternity. The firing is drawing nearer. A moonless night. We hate the feeling of passing on to the front, without having heard ourselves shout to any one, to get out of the way—one of the rare occasions when one wishes instinctively to retire. Not far behind us, we felt, was the Meuse. Yes, there we could make a stand!
The village we entered a few hours ago is on fire. The stream on the road is becoming less dense. The report once more spreads that we are cut off, or at all events forgotten, it appears.
Or sacrificed? The colonel warns us that our division has orders to protect the retreat, to hold out to the last extremity. That revives our courage! But I consider. A division to form a rear-guard? How many corps were there crowded there!
They at last decided to take us back. The wan dawn—the "coal-boxes" beginning again. At one point their crash passes so low above our heads that we should like to bend right down to the ground. We are surrounded on all sides by the terrible detonations. A hundred yards from us a platoon of the 23rd battalion is pounded to pieces—an abominable sight!
We have the strength to make our way.... But the lowlands and ditches and woods are running over with wounded; and men who have come to the end of their strength succumbing to over-work and hunger. Mounted police scour the roads, in increasing numbers, and beat the bushes, shaking men by the collars who seem to be asleep, but sometimes turn out to be dead.