Behind us mounts the heavy rolling of the convoys. It is the hour for the nightly supplies. The autos dash along on the torn up roads in the endeavor to accomplish their difficult mission before the probable barrage fire begins again. On the top of the ridge where the enemy maintains his lines for the moment, a searchlight throws its light on the ground and in the sky, in all directions, watching for aeroplanes and searching for the passing of convoys on the road. Its light passes back and forth over us several times, hitting us in the face and dazzling us. It passes back and forth, flooding the plain with its moving brilliant light. In its light we see moving forms: stretcher-bearers saving the wounded and plunderers of the dead. Suddenly, the whizz of a shell comes our way, and a light bursts high in the air. Shrapnel launch their rain of fire and shell on the plain. “Let’s go....” We had scarcely time to throw ourselves flat on the ground when there was a tremendous explosion. A “380” perhaps bursts on the middle of the mound of corpses and scatters it. One would think that maddened by its orgy of murder, the enemy horde wants to kill our dead anew. A geyser of blood spouts up and boils from the mound. We try to flee but our limbs fail us. An invincible force rivets us to the spot, as we try to jump ahead. Morin utters a hoarse cry, a cry like an animal that is being slaughtered. A corpse was thrown up in the air and falls squarely on him and throws him to the ground. He is underneath, hemmed in by its shrivelled arms; streams of blood deluge him. I try to get him out, but I can’t. My hands feel around on the mangled body. I feel the shattered limbs come apart under the clothes. I pull Morin out from underneath by his arms. He remains motionless for a moment. He is stupid from the shock and fright. I shake him. The arrival of a new engine of death which explodes beside us brings him back to reality and the imminence of danger. This time we run as fast as we can, stumbling over the débris, tripping over the dead, rolling into shell holes, tearing our clothes, hands, and faces on the barbed wire. We flee, absolutely breathless, across old trenches which we see only when their depths yawn before our steps. We flee haggard, in a mad delirium, terrified, pursued by the vision of our dead, of their dim faces, their torn brows, their glassy eyes, their twisted mouths, which the shells still mangle ... which the enemy kill again in their sleep of death. We flee encircled by the rattle of the fire which pursues us, and which with us draws near the road which we wish to reach and it to bar. A more violent puff, and close by, grazes our heads. “Attention!... Stop.... To earth!” A violent shock, a heavy blow between the shoulders, a hard vice grips my body and throws me on the ground. I fall. I fall, and then I remember nothing more. CHAPTER XX DISCHARGED “Come, _mon vieux_, swallow this; it will set you up.”