The shells in their fury shatter the undergrowth, laying bare the black soil beneath. They create an ear-splitting din, flying across the clearing, now growing distant, now returning to burst directly over our heads, tearing down entire trees, hurling roots into the air, scattering the thicket to the four winds. But they strike blindly and unseeing like maddened, unintelligent brutes; their fury, which should be terrible, becomes simply grotesque, a mere impotent frenzy.
When the inferno about us dies down a little, one can hear the shrapnel mewing over the first line of our section. And when I remember the Adjutant and his extravagant precautions, I feel an almost irresistible desire to laugh.
The moment comes when, the last shell having sent its leaden charge over us, complete silence again falls over the woods. There follow several seconds of inaction, during which one becomes conscious of muscles still instinctively shrinking, of the throbbing of the blood in the arteries. Then here and there heads pop up. Soon the men are sitting up ridding themselves anew of their equipment, rising to their feet, and stretching themselves. That little interlude is ended!
Night overtook me in the cutting while I was leading my poilus to relieve the Adjutant. Beneath the trees darkness reigns supreme, a blackness that seems almost palpable, which our eyes strive vainly to pierce. It is as if a wall surrounds us which advances with each step forward we take; it amazes us that we do not strike either feet or face against it; we thrust forth an arm to touch it, but we never succeed in touching it, for it recedes and vanishes before our very finger-tips. Always beyond our reach, yet always there before us, imprisoning us.
I halt my men at the edge of the wood. The shadows here are less dense. Immediately before us is the unpeopled space of the open. As one by one we pick out the vague forms of the bushes, it almost seems as if they had moved to look at us before recomposing themselves to slumber.
I jump down into the trench where I detect a man lying down and grasp his shoulder, but he does not move. I shake him, more and more violently, and all unprotestingly he permits me to do so. How the fellow sleeps! Then I bring my face so close that I touch his. Ugh!… A skin clammy and cold, over a deadly soft flesh. This is a corpse! The ghastliness of the encounter sends a clutching to my heart. Carefully I step over the body and advance a few paces, calling softly. After a time a voice replies. I walk towards it, my feet rustling the straw; near me I hear invisible movements—now at least I am in the midst of the living!
"What section is this?" I ask.
"The third section, Lieutenant."
"I require a man to lead me to the Adjutant."
"Present! Letertre."