The soldier waved his arm with a vague, comprehensive gesture which embraced half the horizon. "From over there!" The Captain shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, but where are the Germans? Do you know whether they have turned Marville on the south?" "No, sir.... You see, I was in a trench.... And the shells began to come along--great big black ones.... First they burst behind us, a hundred yards or more.... Then, of course, we didn't mind 'em. But soon some of them fell right on us ... and then we ran!" "But your officers?" The man made a sign of ignorance. Nothing more could be got out of him. Just at that moment a shell came hissing through the air, and he at once made off at full speed, crouching as he ran. A few dislocated words came back to us over his shoulder: "_Ah! Bon Dieu de bon Dieu!_" The shell burst on the other side of the road, and the moment after three others exploded nearer still. The Captain had not ceased to follow through his glasses the doubtful troops which, by now, had nearly reached the woods. We waited anxiously, standing in a circle round him. "I believe they're French," said he. "Here, Lintier, have a look! You've got good eyes." Through the glasses I was able to distinguish the red of the breeches. "Yes, they're French, sir. But where are they going to?" The Captain made no reply, and I understood that once again our army was in retreat. A shower of shells poured down on the field behind us. The enemy's fire, too much to the left and too high at first, was getting nearer, and was now corrected as far as training went. Our lives depended on the whim of a Prussian Captain and a slight correction for elevation. Just at that moment some sections of infantry suddenly appeared on the edge of the plateau and hurriedly fell back. A company of the 101st had come to man the trenches behind our guns. The air began to vibrate again, and more shells fell, this time right on the top of us. A splinter brushed by my head and clanged on the armour of the ammunition wagon. Another shell plumped down in the trench full of infantry. One, two, three seconds passed; then came a groan and a cry. A man got up and fled, then another, and, finally, the whole company. Their heads held low, and with bent knees, they scurried off. Behind them a wounded man hastily unstrapped his pack, threw both it and his gun to one side, and limped rapidly away. A road orderly arrived with an envelope for the Major. Orders to retire. We limbered up, and moved off at a walking pace. Under the bright sun the stubble-field, with its entrails of black earth laid bare by the gashes torn by the high-explosive shells, seemed to possess something of the horror of a corpse mutilated with gaping wounds. Near the points of burst clods of earth had been blown to a distance, and, round the edge of the hole, the soil was raised in a circular embankment. We were still threatened by sudden death. Some one asked: