"Oh, my mother! If you could only see your son's face now!"
"Thank the good Boches for my nice wound; a billet at Nice, the Côte d'Azur and the Casinos where you can scratch up the gold with little rakes!"
"So you've been saving up now?"
"Saving! I should think so. Live carefully on a bullet a day, and it doesn't take you long to become a millionaire."
But gaiety finds no echo. The men fall silent, stricken with nameless forebodings. Suddenly the shells hurtle whistling over the wood.
"In single file through the cutting!"
We stumble against branches, get entangled in the brambles. The grass deadens the echo of our footsteps, which a moment before resounded along the road.
"Lie down!"
The order comes not a moment too soon, for hardly have we obeyed it when a shell bursts right on top of us. Stones are flung high in the air, and simultaneously two men behind me cry out. The detonation makes my ears tingle; a heavy, acrid odour fills the air.
"Lieutenant! That was my baptism. Just look at these two little holes!"