And during the slow agony which lasted a half hour he did not stop following attentively the progress of his men on the conquered positions. Stretcher-bearers carried his body to the church in Éclusier. We buried him simply on the hill at the east of Cappy in a military cemetery near the canal. When the news of his death was known in the battalion, I know more than a hundred who had seen their best comrades fall beside them, who wept as though they had lost their fathers.... He was with us only a month. CHAPTER XVII THE ATTACK We had been talking about it for months. The hour of the great attack has finally come. They have been preparing for it ever since we were transformed into diggers and sappers who dug trenches, parallels, communication trenches, and saps, day and night. It’s going to succeed at last. This time the artillery preparation won’t be insufficient. We have guns, little and big, of every kind, of every caliber, from the little howitzers set low on their plates with their large muzzles like those we used to see on the terrace of the Invalides up to the great naval guns, long, lean and sharp, like a cigar, monumental guns of unheard-of size mounted on gigantic platforms, with covered turrets, new and odd foreign cannon, long as a train and mounted on rails. And there are projectiles such as the wildest imagination could not dream of. Whole fields of shells of every caliber from the small “75” which now seem like playthings to the enormous “400’s” which can be moved only by gigantic jacks. And over this immense sea of shells they have stretched a green colored tarpaulin, dotted with great yellow spots, with great chalky streaks which in the distance give them the appearance of a field furrowed by tracks. We have been encamped in a wood for three days under tents beside batteries of heavy artillery waiting for the order to take up our positions for the attack. And for these three days our constant occupation has been to strengthen and set up our huts again, for every shot from the great neighboring gun drags them from the ground by the tremendous displacement of air. That is all right in the daytime. This Penelope-like work relieves the monotony and serves as a counter irritant to nervousness. But the occupation is less interesting at night. Finally, about nine o’clock one evening, a great uproar arose in the companies on the other side from us and by degrees, like a rising sea, reached us—we are in our usual place at the extreme wing of the battalion. The adjutant had advanced to meet the news and he came back on the run. “It’s come this time. They are distributing the playthings to clear the trenches and they’re going to give out an additional cup of brandy.” “Do you believe it will be before to-morrow morning?” “Do I believe it. It’s sure, by God! Perhaps you want them to wait until next winter!”