Night overtook me in the cutting while I was leading my poilus to relieve the Adjutant. Beneath the trees darkness reigns supreme, a blackness that seems almost palpable, which our eyes strive vainly to pierce. It is as if a wall surrounds us which advances with each step forward we take; it amazes us that we do not strike either feet or face against it; we thrust forth an arm to touch it, but we never succeed in touching it, for it recedes and vanishes before our very finger-tips. Always beyond our reach, yet always there before us, imprisoning us. I halt my men at the edge of the wood. The shadows here are less dense. Immediately before us is the unpeopled space of the open. As one by one we pick out the vague forms of the bushes, it almost seems as if they had moved to look at us before recomposing themselves to slumber. I jump down into the trench where I detect a man lying down and grasp his shoulder, but he does not move. I shake him, more and more violently, and all unprotestingly he permits me to do so. How the fellow sleeps! Then I bring my face so close that I touch his. Ugh!... A skin clammy and cold, over a deadly soft flesh. This is a corpse! The ghastliness of the encounter sends a clutching to my heart. Carefully I step over the body and advance a few paces, calling softly. After a time a voice replies. I walk towards it, my feet rustling the straw; near me I hear invisible movements--now at least I am in the midst of the living! "What section is this?" I ask. "The third section, Lieutenant." "I require a man to lead me to the Adjutant." "Present! Letertre." "Good! Let us get out of the trench or we'll never make progress. I will follow you." While we march along, whipped by clusters of leaves, torn by embracing thorns, Letertre questions me: "You did not stumble over a dead body before you chanced on us, did you?... Yes! Ah, well! That is number one point they have marked. There are plenty of other bodies further along between the 6th and us; but coming from the clearing and descending into the trench, you fall directly on top of that one, who is the last of our file. You should then turn carefully to the right. Count thirty or thirty-five steps.... Having done so, you will find a shirt we have spread on the ground. That represents the second marked point and means that you should take a half-turn to the left. Just there the line advances a little. Walking straight ahead from that point, you would enter the wood and lose yourself. Hallo! Here is the shirt." A faint white blot lay at our feet; had the blackness been less opaque, it might have been a ray of veiled moonlight filtering through the trees. Letertre continued: