I dreaded this withdrawal. It always means more casualties than anything else.
At a pre-arranged signal, we all leapt out of the trench together, and bolted at the double, bending down as low as possible. Bullets whistled past our ears, but No. 1 platoon retorted vigorously, and the enemy, as I have already said, seemed equally short of ammunition.
By a lucky coincidence, the fury of the artillery had diminished. We reached the wood without losses.
Arrived there, the difficulty was to slip through this inextricable tangle of leafy branches and jagged tree-trunks. Everything was splintered and hacked, and struck one as being the work of drunken woodcutters.
We had to climb and hoist ourselves up and slither down the other side, and cut our way through. Our accoutrements caught into everything, and the rifles impeded our progress. I bruised my leg badly against a treacherous stake. We nearly lost our way, having had to make a large circuit in order to avoid a lot of big trees which were still smouldering. An acrid smoke followed us, with which there was mingled a vaguely putrid stench. Under the piles of foliage, hundreds of dead bodies were lying, which had been in a state of decomposition for four days.
My great object was to avoid getting separated from my men. I shouted to them continually, and they followed as best they could. Some of the wounded, Bouguet among them, dragged themselves along heroically.
Suddenly, as I was balancing myself on a huge fallen oak, there was a spurt of flame, and a deafening report. I was flung into the under-wood. I got up at once, and, directly the smoke began to clear away, looked round for the lieutenant. I had a terrible feeling that he was pulverised.
No, I soon discovered him, stretched under some bracken. He was motionless. I bent over him and saw that his eyes were open and full of tears.