(Censored)
(Censored)
"What, the Boches? How will they explain it afterwards?"
"Ah, good! Here you are, Lieutenant…."
A corporal stands beside me, cool and unperturbed. There is no such word as fear in the dictionary of this man.
"Some of the men broke and ran a few moments ago," he says, "and it is not good to think about. But I must say the occasion justified them. The Boches came up like rats, swarming everywhere. The thickets are full of them now; some of them are not more than fifty yards away. I assure you it is so, Lieutenant, and I am not short-sighted. There is not a single Frenchman between us and them, and they are there all right…."
It is true enough, but all the same…. Their cursed bullets are covering every inch of ground round about us.
Suddenly their bugles ring out and their drums sound close at hand, very close. They are charging.
"Look, they're there," cries one of my men. "You can see them there."
At the end of the clearing two Germans are kneeling and firing.