As the roll-call proceeded, I wondered. The sergeant was deciphering with difficulty the names from his little _carnet_, and response after response was, "Mort." Once in a while the answer changed to, "Mort sur le champ d'honneur," or a brief "Tombé." There were twenty-two men in line, not counting the sergeant and a corporal, who in rear of the line supported himself precariously on two rifles which served him as crutches. Two more groups appeared back of this one, and the same proceeding was repeated. As I stood near the second group I could just catch the responses of the survivors. "Duvivier": "Présent."--"Selonti": "Présent."--"Boismort": "Tombé."--"Herkis": "Mort."--"Carney": "Mort."--"MacDonald": "Présent."--"Farnsworth": "Mort sur le champ d'honneur," responded MacDonald. Several of the men I had known, Farnsworth among them. One officer, a second-lieutenant, commanded the remains of the battalion. Seven hundred and fifty men, he informed me, had gone in an hour ago, and less than two hundred came back. [Illustration: AMERICANS IN THE FOREIGN LEGION RECEIVING NEWS FROM HOME] "Ah, mon ami," he told me, "c'est bien chaud dans le bois." Quietly they turned into column of fours and disappeared in the darkness. Their attack had failed. Owing to the protection afforded by the trees, our aerial scouts had failed to gather definite information of the defenses constructed in the forest, and owing also to the same cause, our previous bombardment had been ineffective. It was our job to remedy this. One battalion of the One Hundred and Seventy-second was detached and placed in line with us, and at 8 P.M. sharp the commandant's whistle sounded, echoed by that of our captain. Quietly we lined up at the edge of the forest, shoulder to shoulder, bayonets fixed. Quietly each corporal examined the rifles of his men, inspected the magazines, and saw that each chamber also held a cartridge with firing-pin down. As silently as possible we entered between the trees and carefully kept in touch with each other. It was dark in there, and we had moved along some little distance before our eyes were used to the blackness. As I picked my steps I prepared myself for the shock every man experiences at the first sound of a volley. Twice I fell down into shell-holes and cursed my clumsiness and that of some other fellows to my right. "The 'Dutch' must be asleep," I thought, "or else they beat it." Hopefully, the latter! We were approaching the farther edge of the "toothbrush bristles," and breathlessly we halted at the edge of the little open space before us. About eighty metres across loomed the black line of another "row of bristles." I wondered.