Fitzgerald lay close to the earth and he could smell the moist clay and dead grass. It was very cold too. He turned over on his side and stretched out his legs to their full extent. It was now on the fringe of dawn....
The earth grew pale and objects in the near distance took on definite form....
Fitzgerald woke with a start and got to his feet. He had been asleep for a few minutes only. His mates were buckling their belts and grumbling at their lot. What was going to happen now? Going back again and all that damned trek for nothing. Not one of them could march another hundred yards....
"We're not going far back," Snogger said. "Just a mile or so and we'll billet at a village. Then you can all 'ave a kip. That's if ye're lucky."
"And the attack?" Fitz asked. "Was it beaten off?"
"Yes," said the sergeant. "The Germans got as far as our trench and there they stopped; some of them for good. We're lucky we weren't in it, I'm thinking.... Come on, boys, and pull yourselves together," he shouted. "We've got to get out of this before it gets too clear. It'll soon be broad daylight, and we'll be damned unlucky if we're 'ere then."
Wounded men who were able to walk straggled along the road. When they fell they fell silently and got up mutely. But many fell and did not rise.
The men were well on their way when dawn broke, and the rim of the sky flushed crimson. Dead mules lay on the cobbled ways, torn with ghastly wounds; drivers in khaki, helplessly impotent, lay huddled amidst their broken limbers. The roadway was gutted by shells and the poplars that lined the path were scarred and peeled by many a projectile. Behind, the shells were bursting and the sound of explosions quivered through the crisp clear air.
If the men looked back they could see the hills behind, rising out of the dawn, the white mists in the Zouave valley—the valley of Death, the Cabaret Rouge, the inn on the Souchez Road, and Souchez itself which is now a heap of powdered dust. War had rent and riven many a village but Souchez it had powdered to dust. Not the fragment of a single wall remained standing and not a whole brick remained of the village of Souchez.
Higher than any of the hills of Lorrette rose "The Pimple," the highest peak in the district. From the top mile after mile of the surrounding country was visible—woods, roads, towns, villages and canals. The French were supposed to be holding it.