"We're seen!"
We heard the scream of heavy shell approaching, and at once threw ourselves flat on the ground behind the sheep, which formed a sort of rampart. Down came the shells between us and the farm. We jumped up, and, in spite of our heavy burdens, ran till we were out of the line of fire. We passed the dead gendarmes and did not stop until we had reached a row of poplars which hid us from view. Three projectiles swooped down on the spot we had just left.
Winding our way through the copses and hollows of the plateau we regained the park in safety.
I resumed my seat on a bundle of wood near the fire, while a gunner, who was a butcher by trade, methodically cut up one of the sheep strung up by the foot to the store wagon.
As I led the horses down to drink at the tanks I took a short cut across the fields in the hope of finding some potatoes, beetroot, or perhaps some onions. We were specially in need of onions, for some of our food was most insipid and we knew of no other flavouring.
I found neither onions nor potatoes, but, on the other side of a knoll, I saw some foot-soldiers stretched out on the loose sheaves of wheat. Their red breeches were visible a long way off. Evidently some of those who had fallen in the engagements of the 12th.
In a hollow a little farther on I also came upon some German corpses. Thirteen Frenchmen and seventeen Germans had fallen there, almost side by side. And yet the Frenchmen seemed more numerous. Red patches on the yellow of the stubble-field, they caught the eye, whereas the Germans were hardly noticeable.
The arms and packs of the dead men had been taken away, and coats, tunics, and shirts had been unbuttoned so that the medals could be unpinned. Their necks, bared chests, and eyelids had already turned a greenish-grey. A little sergeant, who had fallen backwards on to some sheaves which now pillowed his head, still held his right arm starkly in the air. The stiffened fingers of his outstretched hand seemed clasped in a grip of agony. On his sleeve the gold bar shone in the sun.
As I passed on, some swallows, whose low flight announced rain, skimmed over the knoll, their pointed wings lightly touching the dead men.
Thursday, September 17