Bois de Septsarges. Hardy undergrowth thrusting forth roots shoots amid the shadows of the great forest. Great splashes of light are on the moss; living, quivering sun-rays pierce the warm gloom; the acrid odour of fermentation, increased by the sun, is oppressive. It strikes one forcibly, that sun! I recline in the shelter of a tree, moving only as the shade moves.
P——, a second-lieutenant of the 8th, lies weltering beside me. He is writing in pencil a long letter to his wife; he chats about her and his little girl, who is five months old. I pay him all the attention I possibly can, but I fear I do not understand much of what he says: his voice comes to me like a monotonous purring—which is, as it were, punctuated by the throbbing of the blood in my temples and fingers. And so I fall asleep.
A terrific explosion wakes me with a start. Three more successive detonations shatter the air, and above my head I hear the flight of shells—a light rustling, a rapid rushing, which one can with some difficulty follow with the ear, growing more and more distant until it terminates finally in the explosion.
"Those are 120 mm. guns," P—— remarks to me.
Scarcely have the words crossed his lips before a succession of harsher and more violent explosions causes me to look away to the left. There is no hanging back for each other with these! They come altogether in a rush, yet each detonation is separately distinguishable, despite the deep murmur following the resounding, vibrating echo which steals through the undergrowth. I think a battery of our 75's must have urgent work on hand.
By the evening, the cannonade has become far heavier. The whistling shells pass and cross each other's course; the smaller ones furiously maintaining a flat trajectory; the bigger ones sailing past almost slowly, winging through the air with well-nigh dulcet tones. Quite mechanically I raise my eyes to watch them. Every man hearing that noise for the first time, does the same thing.
When we leave the wood these "marmites" are bursting away to our left, near enough for us to hear, after the explosion, the hail of splinters striking the trees.
We remain in our billets as wakeful as on the preceding night, and this is to be my last night with my fat old man. Alas!
Monday, August 31st.
We set out for the Septsarges Wood again. The day is passed as was the preceding one. Grillon, a regimental barber, shaves me: a sensation which has already become strange to me. Two knapsacks for a stool, a tree for a backrest. I pay him with superfine tobacco, and he would have kissed me! I settle down again for a siesta, chasing the shade.