"The officer raises himself and directs the rays from his lamp on the heaps. We see that they are buried in the snow up to the waist, or to the neck, but none of them moves. The officer throws the light right and left, and shows us hundreds of Germans extended, their fallen rifles sticking up in the snow like planted things.
"'I don't understand,' he mutters.
"'Excellency, I am going to see,' says the chief scout.
"'Go on,' the officer consents, 'and you, boys, have your rifles ready and fire at anything suspicious without waiting for orders from me.'
"S. gets out of the trench and immediately disappears, swallowed by the soft snow up to the neck. He tries to get one leg out, but without success. He tries to lean on one hand, pushes it down into the snow, then pulls hard and swears. His hands are frightfully scratched; the blood tinges the snow with dark blotches.
"'It's the barbed wire defenses,' he cries. 'Help me, little brothers. Alone I can do nothing.'
"We catch him by the collar of his tunic, and with difficulty pull him out. His coat, trousers, boots are in shreds.
"'Thousand devils,' he swears. 'I have no legs left. They're scratched to pieces.'
"The officer understands: the trenches are defended by intrenchments of barbed wire. The snow had covered and piled high above them. The whole battalion we had seen had rushed forward to the help of those who had called and had got mixed up in the wires. The first over had sunk into the snow and disappeared. Those coming after had stepped on them, passed on, become entangled wires, and had fallen in turn under our hail of lead. Rank on rank, ignorant of what had happened and rushing on like wild animals, had shared the fate of their comrades. So perished a whole battalion."