Another man is crying out the words now. Staggering and livid, he presses both his hands to the lower part of his abdomen to hold in his intestines, bulging in his crimson shirt. Another is desperately clutching his arm, from which large drops of blood drip constantly. A fourth suddenly stops running, kneels down before us, with his back towards the enemy, opens his clothes and deliberated withdraws from the inner side of the groin a bullet, which he carefully places in his purse.
And so endlessly they stream past us, each one with the same staring eyes, following the same stumbling and zigzag course, panting, obsessed by the thought of the hilltop behind which lies safety, burning to get out of this ravine where death whistles amid the leaves, in order to recover their nerves down there, where their wounds will be dressed, where they will be cared for, perhaps even saved.
"Your section will occupy the ditch which forms a continuation of the Callone trench," Porchon tells me. "Keep a close watch over our left, the roadway and this clearing. You will be covering the battalion on this side."
I lead my men right into the heart of the inferno. I have to shout at the top of my voice to make the sergeant and corporals hear my orders. Behind us a machine-gun spits furiously, sweeping the road with a veritable stream of bullets. We are only just beyond the arc of its fire, and the incessant detonations follow each other so rapidly that all one can hear is a rending sound, as though the earth itself were gradually splitting asunder. At times the vicious sweep gets unpleasantly close, and a death-dealing swarm of lead whips and rends the air, dashing warm puffs into our faces. At the same time German bullets fly through the leaves; they embed themselves in the trunks of trees, shatter big branches, tear off smaller ones, which drift lightly and slowly down upon us; they fly over the road before the machine-gun bullets, which they seem to defy; it is almost as if a duel were being waged between these whistling demons which pass spattering, spluttering and ricochetting, spitefully hissing there before us over the road where the stones lie pulverized.
"Lie down at the bottom of the ditch. Good Lord, don't raise your head!"
Two of my men have now been wounded; one of them near me has sunk to his knees, and is gasping and vomiting blood; the other sits down with his back to a tree-trunk and begins to unlace his gaiters with trembling fingers in order to see "where it is," and "how it is."
The noise of galloping in the clearing. Are they coming this way? No! …! …!
"Well done, Morand! Bravo, my boy! …!"
(Suppressed by Censor.)
(Censored)