The fire of our batteries had been uninterrupted for three days; and this with the constant whizzing of shells as they passed over our heads put our nerves almost as much on edge as the strain of the approaching attack. Towards eleven o’clock one night there was an intense calm all of a sudden. The firing ceased along the whole line—on both sides. All was silence, but it was the silence which precedes the storm, the stupor of nature after the flash and before the thunder. The men burrowed in the saps and fell asleep. The sentries who had not closed an eye for forty-eight hours continued to fight against sleep. It was almost impossible to recognize the commander in his bizarre garb, wrapped in a canvas instead of a waterproof, his steel helmet covered with mud, as he wandered up and down the trenches, with a kind word of encouragement for each one. In the “Servian” trench there was an exposed passage to the German lines. They had blocked this up by piles of sandbags, chevaux de frise, and rolls of barbed wire. As a greater precaution, a sentry was stationed there night and day. He was sleeping deeply when the commander came by. He had to shake him vigorously to wake him up. “Say, do you sleep like that when you’re sentry?” “I ... it’s true ... I was asleep.” “That’s not serious. Try hard, if an officer should come along, you’d not get off with advice.” “They won’t come along; they’re all snoozing in their dugouts.” “Oh, you never know.” “Well, I’m going mad sooner or later. I haven’t slept a wink for three nights. If the Boches are as tired as I am they won’t come to wake us up.” As he talked, his voice was drawn out more and more and his head nodded. He was dead with sleep.... The commander took his rifle from his hands and said: “I’m not sleepy, and, besides, I shall sleep very well to-morrow. I’ll mount guard to-morrow. Sleep, little one, sleep. We, the old, have lost our habit of sleep.” The sentry did not even acquiesce in this invitation. He had accepted it in advance, for he was asleep already. At daybreak when the relief came, the sergeant who accompanied the new sentry was thunderstruck when he recognized the commander mounting guard at the loophole. “Here’s his rifle. Wake him up when I have gone. Say nothing about it, for he was very sleepy.” * * * * * When the signal for the assault was given the next day, after our first two waves had gained the enemy trenches without firing a shot, the commander, who was to go with the third, had scarcely advanced on the field when the whistle of a single shell shattered the air. A “77” burst and a cloud of smoke went up. His thigh was torn off and we saw him fall in a pool of blood. Lieutenant Delpos was getting ready to dash across with the second section of the company and he jumped towards him. “Go on, my friend, the end has come. I am waiting for it. Tell Captain C ... to take command of the battalion.”