It was all over. The fatal step had been taken.
Day dawned, suffusing the earth with pink and blue tints. A thrush sang on a shattered tree.
I soon saw Vignerte in the ravine below. He was coming up slowly. I could see his tall, elegant form and, little by little, distinguish his dark, clean-cut features.
"O God!" I cried.
"Come, sir," said my chief, "have you gone mad?"
And now Vignerte was only a hundred yards away. I saw him stride out as he got to that open slope which still separated him from the Commanding Officer's dug-out.
Then, from the clear depths of infinite distance a horrible sound came out of nothing, and swelled to a great shriek. In the pallid sky an invisible mass was approaching with the noise of a train entering a station. The shriek grew louder and louder and we realized that the hellish journey was to end on us.
We saw the men skip into their holes like so many frogs.
Surprised in the very middle of the bare slope, Vignerte had stopped. Should he go on, or go back? We felt his fatal hesitation.
The shriek was now a roar of thunder.