"Gilon."
"That's all right. Keep your eyes and your ears open, but do not start firing if only a leaf rustles. Remember there is wire before you to which we have fastened empty meat-tins with a few pebbles inside. A Boche has only to touch the wire to set up a deuce of a rattle. Also, do not fire if you should hear crackers going off to the right or left. Just guard your particular corner to the very best of your ability. Understand?"
"I understand, Lieutenant."
I am just going to leave him, when a gun fires a little behind us, not twenty yards away; we saw a flame spurt out of the muzzle. A moment later there is a second report; then the thunder of a squall, and bullets rush and whistle a short distance away.
"Lieutenant? You heard?"
A cry has vibrated through the night, coming from far away to the right, and as if it had been intended for us alone, it echoes and re-echoes through the trees around us, with poignant, tragic force.
"To arms!"
A glimpse of light, quickly extinguished, passes from one end of the French trenches to the other. A crisp outbreak rends the darkness; branches, bullet-shattered, fall to the earth. We have flung ourselves flat, face downwards. Fortunately our men are firing high; the slope of the earth saves us. Still lying flat, we crawl with difficulty through an entanglement of brambles. Chabeau and Gilon are so close to me that I can hear their laboured breathing. Often a whining bullet grazes us; but most of them fly above us right across the hollow, to embed themselves in the further side.
"We had better shout out, Lieutenant," Chabeau suggests.
"No, no! Follow me!"