"When the order was given that we would go 'over the top' at three o'clock in the morning, and take the Germans' first line trench, our boys were ready. There was no 'try to take it' nor 'attack it,' but 'we will go over the top and take it.' There was a note of finality in the wording of the order, which we well understood. Our lieutenant then came down to our fire bay and asked who would volunteer to go out at midnight and cut the lanes. He was looking right at me, and said 'Vincent, how about it?' I timidly replied, 'I'll go, sir.' There was no way out. I am frank to confess that after I got to thinking about it, my knees began to shake. The more I thought, the worse they got. I had given my word, though, and I wouldn't be a quitter. I don't think there is any yellow streak in me, but there is a lot of human nature. I love life. I got to thinking of my past and the words of Shakespeare ran in my mind, 'Conscience doth make cowards of us all.' I wasn't scared, I was paralyzed.
"I realized what it meant that I had promised to do. It meant that I was to climb up a scaling ladder over our parapet, go out into the full exposure of the enemy, crawl on my stomach slowly—slowly again—an inch at a time—so slowly that if a German saw me, he would not know I was moving at all, and would suppose me dead. I must cover the distance between our parapet and our entanglement, which was perhaps a dozen yards, with a tripping wire in between, then noiselessly cut a lane through twenty feet of knotted and gnarled barbed wire, fastening it back so that it could not curl up and entangle our men as they rushed through. Then I must creep and crawl on my stomach, hugging the ground until I got back and slid into our trench. If I were seen, it was all day with me. I'd go to Blighty—for good.
"Well, twelve o'clock came around—all too soon. I went. When I had cut my first wire, a German star shell fell, lighting up the barbed-wire entanglement for rods around. Luckily for me it fell short of the parallel in which I was, to the trenches. If it had fallen back of me, it would have thrown my body into bold relief."
For the readers' benefit be it said that a star shell is something like a sky rocket or a roman candle. It is sent up into the air and falls to the ground, lighting up everything around it. The purpose of it is to betray any action of the enemy in No Man's Land. Obviously, if it falls short, it blinds the sender to what is going on beyond it, just as a light in the window of a house will not throw the objects in the room into view from the outside, especially if the spectator is some distance away. But objects can be plainly seen in the room by a person across the street, if the light is on the far side of the room. This is particularly true if the object should move. So with the star shell. But it must frighten one at best to be lying on his stomach and have the whole world illuminated about him even if he is behind the light.
In slower and lower tones the poilu continued:
"I had just cut my last wire and folded it back on the post—I don't think thirty seconds had passed—when a star shell came down between me and my own trench and glimmered away as if it never would go out. It may have burned for thirty seconds, but that thirty seconds seemed like thirty years to me.
"I was less than forty yards from the German trenches, and I believe within thirty yards of their barbed wire. As that star shell came down, I had my hand upon a post about a foot from the ground. And as it was, I was really grasping the barbed wire, wrapped around the post, and thus assisting myself to crawl back to our trenches. Although the wire was cutting my fingers fiercely, I dared not let loose of that post, for fear the Germans would detect the motion and let me have it hot and heavy. Just before the star shell burned out, I distinctly heard some German voices. One man said, 'There, look there!' Then the star shell went out. Expecting another immediately, I dared not move or withdraw my hand. It came. Again I could hear those Germans talking, this time arguing about me, instead of shooting me, and when that star shell went out, I pulled myself up by the aid of that post and ran as I never ran in my life before. I believe I broke the world's record.
"And then, at last, they began to shoot, and just as I fell into our trenches, one of them caught me here." His breathing was labored as he placed his hand on his side.