The Boches are certainly not brilliant marksmen! They do not aim; their bullets either fly too high among the branches above us or fall short before us. And their bugles? And their drums? Their last charge is a feeble affair, broken, finished, dead!
"Cease fire!"
My men, hearing, pass the order along and cease fire, but keep their rifles ready, awaiting a new command.
"Two rounds…."
The command runs right along the line: "Two rounds … two rounds … two rounds."
This is good! It is splendid! Only to think that a little time ago I wanted to step into the road swept by that machine-gun, in order to reassure my trembling men and avert a shameful débâcle which I dreaded!…
(Censored)
(Censored)
Little by little the firing dies away. We ourselves fire no longer, because we have consumed an enormous amount of ammunition; the nickel cases thickly cover the ground behind the pile of logs. It must be getting late; evening falls. Lassitude descends upon the woods and us. The craving for rest becomes insistent. There are gaps in our ranks which we only know and feel when calm succeeds the storm. The moment is come when the survivors gather together and count themselves, when they regain touch with each other, when closer contact seems in some sort to deaden the sense of loss.
The order to leave the wood reaches us at the usual time; it is as though we had not been fighting at all. We have checked the rush of the Boches; we have killed hundreds of them, have decimated, dispersed and demoralized their attacking battalions. They will not advance again this evening; our day's work is done.