"Ah!…"
The instant we reach the top of the slope a volley, hissing, tearing and spitting, is directed at us. A common impulse causes the men to throw themselves flat to the earth.
"Up you get, nom d'un chien! Regnard, Lauche, all the N.C.O.'s … (Censored) … Make them get up!"
The fire is not yet heavy. A few bullets only come seeking us, shattering the branches about us. I call out at the top of my voice:
"Let it be clearly understood! All N.C.O.'s are responsible for seeing that no man falls out. We are about to cross a copse where it is very easy to get away. You must keep a very sharp look-out."
Two men rush into the clearing where I am standing. They run so quickly that they appear to be flying from the foe. Their faces are bloody and no merciful bandage conceals the wounds which they are coming to show to my men! As they come up, the first man cries:
"Get out of the way! Make room! There are others following us!"
That man no longer possesses a nose; in place of it there is a hole which bleeds and bleeds….
His companion has had his lower jaw blown off. Is it credible a single bullet could effect such a shocking injury? Almost half his face is no more than a soft, hanging, crimson piece of flesh, from which blood and saliva trickle in a viscous stream. Above this horror peer out two round, blue, boyish eyes; they stare at me, eloquent with unendurable distress, in mute stupefaction. The sight shakes me to the very depths of my being, to the point of tears; then the unmeasured rage of a madman against those who caused this war, who set all this blood running, who massacre and mutilate, sweeps over me like a storm.
"Get out of the way! Get out of the way!"