Of course I have to cover at least fifty, stumbling over feet, and doing the acrobat to pass the men squatting in the trench. At last I see Gendre and Lebret. Gendre, who perceives me first, points out to me a man lying down.
"Don't ask him to make room for you," he says. "He would not hear you; he is dead. You will have to step over him."
Then, stooping down, he calls along the trench:
"Adjutant, the Lieutenant is here."
From the earth rises a groan; a formless mass of straw moves and rises; the head of the Adjutant appears, his hair dishevelled and full of pieces of straw, his eyes weary from lack of sleep, his beard untrimmed and also full of dirt. The Adjutant seems very ill! The thinness of his cheeks is marked; a brown stain colours his eyelids; a dirty livid tint has spread over his face.
"Hullo! What is this then, Roux! Are things not going well with you?"
"I? I am about done, that is clear. Aches all over, chest stove in, a horse fever … it won't be long before I am sent down."
He rises to his feet, groaning again, his hands pressed to the small of his back, his chest huddled together, and seats himself on the edge of the trench at a spot which is protected by a bush.
"Sit here beside me," he says, "and I will point things out to you."
Before us extends an untilled plain bounded on the further side of the valley by steep heights. Without doubt the village lies at the bottom of the valley, but from where I am sitting it is not possible to see the houses; only one or two isolated farms. To the left, the wood forms a pronounced salient which attracts the eye. A dense cluster of pines has thrust its way right into the middle of the plain, where it forms a splash of sombre colour, opaquely green, but astonishingly fresh and distinct against the seared yellows of the surroundings.