That dim line on the eastern ridge, which marks the ruins of Fort Vaux, stands indeed for a story which has been entrusted by history to the living memory of France's Allies, hardly less than to that of France herself. As we pause among the crumbling trenches and shell-holes to look back upon the height of Vaux, I seem to see the lines of French infantry creeping up the hill, through the communication trenches, in the dark, to the relief of their comrades in the fort; the runners--eager volunteers--assuring communications under the incessant hail of shell; the carrier-pigeons, when the fort is altogether cut off, bringing their messages back to Headquarters; the red and green signal lights shooting up from the ridge into the night. One of these runners, when the siege was nearing its end, arrived at an advance post, having by a miracle got through a terrible barrage unhurt. "You might have waited a few instants," said the Colonel, kindly. But the runner, astonished, showed the envelope. "My Colonel, look--it is written--'_urgent!_'" That was the spirit. Or listen to this fragment from the journal of Captain Delvert, defending one of the redoubts that protect Fort Vaux: "Six o'clock--the bombardment has just begun again. The stretcher-bearer, L----, has just been leaning a few moments--worn out--against the wall of my dug-out. His good, honest face is hollow, his eyes, with their blue rims, seem starting out of his head. '_Mon Capitaine_, I'm used up. There are only three stretcher-bearers left. The others are dead or wounded. I haven't eaten for three days, or drunk a drop of water.' His frail body is only held together by a miracle of energy. Talk of heroes--here is a true one! "Eight o'clock. We are relieved. "Eleven o'clock. Message from the Colonel. 'Owing to circumstances the 101st cannot be relieved.' "_Merci!_ "What a disappointment for my poor fellows! Lieutenant X---- is lost in admiration of them. I daresay--but I have only thirty-nine of them left." Eighteen hours later. "The order for relief has come. We shall leave our dead behind us in the trench. Then-comrades have carefully placed them out of the passage-way.... There they are--poor sentinels, whom we leave behind us, in a line on the parados, in their blood-stained uniforms--solemn and terrible guardians of this fragment of French soil, which still in death they seem to be holding against the enemy." But the enemy advances inexorably, and within the fort the dead and dying multiply. "Captain Tabourot fought like a lion," says another witness. "He was taller than any of us. He gave his orders briefly, encouraged us, and placed us. Then he plunged his hand into the bag of bombs, and, leaning back, threw one with a full swing of the arm, aiming each time. That excited us, and we did our best."