Despite myself, I look. Boulier continues in a babble:
"Behind the beech, nowhere else. One is taller than the other, or else one of them must be stooping. Every now and again the big one bends forward, as if stretching his neck to look about. The other keeps still. Ah, the scum!…"
Intently I watch the beech tree pointed out by Boulier. What he affirms is true, perhaps. I listen calmly to all he has to say, his face so close that I can feel his warm breath on mine:
"There, the other has moved a little; the big one wants to speak to him. He is stooping down. Good! There you are, he is rising again. Ah, the camels!"
Peering so constantly into the blackness wearies my eyes. Lights begin to dance before them; rings of flame begin to whirl vertiginously. I close my eyes for a moment. And when I open them again, I can see behind the beech two unmoving human beings, bending low in a listening attitude. I shake myself, look at my hands, at the wattles supporting the parapet, and then once more at the beech. I can see nothing now but beeches and leaves.
"There are no Boches there," I tell Boulier. "You also have lost your head."
I jump up over the front of the trench. The man calls me back.
"Lieutenant! Lieutenant! Don't go! You are going to get yourself hurt!…"
At the first step I stumble over the stump of a tree and almost fall. When I have regained my balance, I can see the two Germans behind the tree again. And on the instant I detect them, a conviction seizes me that they too have seen me. A storm of fear assails me. My heart seems to become empty of blood; my flesh grows icy cold and trembles violently. In desperation I get grip of myself, fighting back an impulse to cry out aloud or to take to my heels; the effort of will causes my nails to enter my palms.
Drawing my revolver, I continue to advance. Instead, however, of moving without haste in complete self-possession, I rush blindly and furiously towards the right.