There, thirty yards away, on the right is a knoll. That is our objective which we must occupy to prevent the enemy’s reserves coming up. We draw nearer; my heart begins to beat violently. It is nervousness. It is the beginning of the end. Suddenly a sharp noise stops me; then another beside my ear. Instinctively I throw myself on the hill. A sergeant falls near me without a word. He is dead, a bullet in the middle of his forehead. We are under the fire of a machine gun which defends the approach to our objective. The bullets whistle in a continuous buzz around us. A sharp burning pain, like a sting; a cry stops in my throat, on my very lips. I fall. The fusillade rages. To the right, to the left, around me everywhere, bullets bury themselves in the ground. I am wounded, but where? All my limbs are numb. I feel a hand take mine and grasp it. It is the lieutenant, who has already come running to me. “Good-by for the present.” “For the present.” It is nothing. A stone hurled violently by the bursting of a shell has hit me in the back. It has just missed killing me. I remain there a moment without being able to get my breath back or to get up. All around there is an incessant rain of bullets and shrapnel. However, I can’t remain there right in the barrage. I make an effort to catch up with the company. My fall which took only a few seconds has put considerable distance between the wave and me. More than three hundred yards separate us. I want to run after it, but I can’t. A greenish cloud rolls like a flood over the plain. The enemy is launching gas. Some one out of breath joins me. It is Morin who took a message to the major. He is now carrying an order to the lieutenant. “This is dangerous.” “One might think so.” “Commandant Courier was just killed getting out of the parallel.” “No?” “A ‘155’ square in the chest. It killed two officers and five men. I’ve a splinter in my thigh and one in my shoulder.” [Illustration: THE ATTACK _See page 225_] We walk along side by side as fast as we can, but slowly nevertheless. We can’t do anything else. We get tangled in the barbed wire; we stumble over corpses; we fall headlong into shell holes. The mud covers the mica in my mask. A hundred yards in front of us the company reaches its objective, the hill and the Boche blockhouse. Two sections have rushed in and are already in action. Two more sections throw themselves into a crater more to the left opposite a clump of trees which is still held by the enemy. Suddenly there is a terrific explosion, and the most violent clap of thunder that can be imagined sends us head over heels. The ground trembles, the earth cracks, and through the crevices oozes a black smoke which envelops us. Everything is black. Are we entombed?