Sitting at the bottom of the trench, my hands crossed over my raised knees, I hear before and behind me, over the whole plain, the sharp thud of pickaxes against stones, the scraping of spades throwing up the earth, the careful murmur of lowered voices. Occasionally, some man whom one cannot see, coughs and expectorates. The night envelops and hides us from the enemy's eyes, permitting us at last to bury our dead.
The voice of my sergeant calls to me through the darkness:
"Are you there, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, I am here!"
Groping about until he finds my hand, he places something into it.
"Here, sir. This is all we found on them."
Crouching at the bottom of the trench, I strike a match. In the light it sheds for a brief spell, I see a much-worn pocket book, a leather purse, and an identification disc attached to a piece of black cord. A second match! The pocket book contains the photograph of a young woman nursing a baby in her lap; also I am enabled to make out a name inscribed in straggling letters on the disc. The sergeant comments:
"There was nothing on the other—I searched him from his heels to his—his neck—I mean the one whose head was blown off. And there was nothing except the purse which belonged to him."
A third match. The purse contains a little money, a few coppers only, and a piece of dirty, crumpled paper, on which is written: "Gronin Charles, Railway employee. Class, 1904. Soissons." Then the match goes out.
I shake the sergeant's hand; it is damp and feverish, and the fingers are not steady.