With a bound, with a single bound, sudden, violent, unanimous, we jumped the parapet, and without the enemy’s firing a shot in his utter surprise, we bounded into the German trench. Five minutes later, there was none left alive. Bowing my head over the body of my friend, I placed the picture of his child on his still moist lips. * * * * * The Communique will say: “South of the Somme we took a picket post by surprise, captured two machine guns and considerable material for making asphyxiating gas. Our losses are insignificant.” * * * * * And the public will think that very simple—a picket post ... two machine guns ... and no losses. CHAPTER XIII A NIGHT CONVOY The colonel just telephoned the following order: “The echelons of the companies of machine guns will bring, to-night, thirty thousand cartridges to the P. C.[1] of the regiment. This order must be executed before daylight.” We spent the afternoon in verifying the belts and making up the war train. Towards seven o’clock we went slowly towards the bridge at Froissy, where we made a long halt until night fell. The sentry refused to let us take the towpath which would save us some eight miles. These were his instructions! It appears that the noises of the caissons and wagons might wake up the enemy, who would at once bombard the towpath near which were numerous huts of regiments who were resting. So we crossed the canal, and in order to get to Cappy on our right, we have to go round by Bray-sur-Somme. But this road has its distractions. The road is absolutely torn up and it is not five yards wide anywhere, in fact it is an infernal mixture of automobiles, artillery, caissons and batteries. No one will slow up. They cross over, go around, hang on, shout, bellow, insult, and get past as best they can. Our mules are obstinate and stubborn and go on their way placidly in the midst of this uproar. Once we lean so far to the right that the hubs of the wheels on the lower side stick in the mud. We doubtless go ahead slowly, but we go ahead all the same. The drivers have to go in front of their beasts. It would be madness for them to stay on the seats of the ammunition wagons, and the certain ruin for man and beast, for exhausted by fatigue, they would fall asleep and get in the way of the enormous meteors which rush by without seeing anything. As we approach Bray, the crowding is beyond anything one could imagine. It is one compact mass of wagons, trucks, caissons, guns, forage wagons, all entangled, mixed up, wedged together, trying to get through a street scarcely wide enough to let two wagons by and where ten insist on going together. If we mix with this crowd, we will condemn ourselves to several hours in one place without moving. Once in the crush it is impossible to get free and go back.