The thunder of the 75's almost splits our ears. Occasionally a German shell flies past us with a shrill whistle and peppers the trees with a volley of shrapnel. Into the midst of this tumult we march and take up position. My section occupies about fifty yards of a trench already full of corpses. "Out with your tools," I say to my men, "and dig for all you are worth." Night falls. The cold increases. It is that hour when, the battle ended, the wounded who have not yet been brought in, cry aloud in their suffering and distress. And those calls, those appealings, those moanings, awaken anguish in all those compelled to listen to them; an anguish the crueller for the fighters who are chained to their posts by stern duty yet who long to rush out to their gasping comrades, to dress their wounds, to speak words of comfort to them, and to carry them to safety where fires burn brightly and warm. Yet we must not do so; we are chained to the spot, our hearts wrung, our nerves quivering, shivering at the sound of soul-stricken cries brought to us unceasingly by the night. "A drink!..." "Are you going to leave me to die here?..." "Stretcher-bearers!..." "Drink!..." "Ah!..." "Stretcher-bearers!..." I hear some of my men say: "Where the devil are the stretcher-bearers!" ... (Censored) ... "They are like fleas--you can never find them when you look for them." And before us the whole plain wrapped in darkness seems to shiver from the agony of those undressed wounds. Voices soft, weary from having cried so long: "... (Censored) ... ....?" "Mother, oh, mother!" "Jeanne, little Jeanne.... Oh! say that you hear me, my Jeanne!" "I am thirsty.... I am thirsty.... I am thirsty.... I am thirsty...." Voices in anguish, panting and gasping: "I won't die here like a rat!" "Stretcher-bearers! Stretcher-bearers!... Stretcher-bearers!!!" "... (Censored) ... ....?" "You fellows, finish me off, for God's sake! Ah!..." A German, not more than twenty yards away, cries out incessantly: "Kamerad! Franzose! Kamerad! Kamerad! Franzose!" And in a lower voice: "Hilfe! Hilfe!" His voice wavers and breaks into a wailing as of a crying child; then his teeth snap fiercely; then he shatters the night stillness with a beast's cry, like the howling of a dog baying at the moon. Terrible beyond the power of words, that night. Every minute either Porchon or myself were jumping to our feet. The whole time we were under fire and the cold was truly cursed. _Wednesday, September 23rd._ Relief appears at last. We depart through the woods along a pathway from which the undergrowth has been cleared, thus permitting us to see well ahead. During a short halt, several of the men break into exclamations of pleasure and delight: "Hallo! Vauthier!" "And you, Raynaud!" "Well, I'm damned.... Baurain!" "It is not possible! We thought you had gone for good.... What have you been doing?... Where do you come from?"