Bullets strike the ground all about us. I can think of nothing but my haversack and _musette_, my can and bayonet sheath which will insist on slipping between my legs. The ground is soft and slimy. I do my best to keep the barrel of my rifle clean. Take care the cartridge cases don't fly open! Crawling along in this fashion is no sinecure. Smoking distracts me, and so I keep my pipe between my teeth. My nose is almost poking into Reymond's heels. From his coat pocket slips a sketch-book. Recognizing its mauve cover, I pick it up, the result being that I am more embarrassed than ever in my anxiety not to lose it. Reymond descends head foremost into a hole. I follow him. "Look out, there's some one dead here." "Take your sketch-book. You dropped it just now." Evidently he is unnerved, for he answers-- "What the deuce do you expect me to do with that? You might have left it where it was." The ungrateful fellow! A few comrades join us. We crowd as well as we can into the trench, taking care not to tread upon the dead body. The lieutenant in command of the company has walked across the open space which, at his orders, the men have had to crawl across. He now appears before us, safe and sound. "Who is dead over there?" he asks. "Mignard has had his brains blown away, _mon lieutenant_. A ball right in the forehead, just as he was scaling the parapet." Mignard's haversack is unbuckled. His cover is unrolled and wrapped round his head. More wounded men returning. Here comes one groaning more loudly than the rest. A bullet has pierced his arm above the wrist. He grins as he shakes his injured paw. "What's the matter with you?" "I'm certain my arm's broken." "Move your fingers." He lifts them up and down like a pianist. "That will be nothing at all. Shall I dress it for you?" I cut the sleeve of his coat and shirt. The wound consists of two tiny holes of reddish-brown, one the entrance, the other the exit of the bullet. "Just a little iodine on it?" Scared out of his wits, the other says-- "No, no; it would burn too much!" I dress the wound, and when it is finished say to him-- "Off you go, old fellow; either return to the front or go back to the rear, as you please." He chooses the rear. Another who has done his day's work. Reserve squadrons come up. Jouin runs along at full speed instead of crawling. The lieutenant, perceiving him, shouts out-- "Down with you! Down!" Jouin either does not or will not hear. "Hear him laughing, the idiot!" remarks the lieutenant, quite furious. Jouin is at the edge of the trench. One more leap and he will be safe. Just then he stops, looks fixedly at his hand, and falls to the ground. Parvis, his mate and friend from childhood, rushes up to him and says, after a moment's examination-- "He has a couple of bullets right in his chest. Nothing to be done." "Well, then, come down; it will be your turn next." "No, I must stay; he is still breathing."