It was, indeed, a gruesome sight, not worse, perhaps, than many others which belong to the battlefield. In the heat of battle, when everything is noise and bustle, and when men grit their teeth and rush into every sort of danger, they become numbed to scenes even worse than this. But it is different when in the calm of the morning, they see the results of their work and allow their thoughts to wander. The party had reached the base of the hill, and was nearing the formidable fourth line of the German trenches, which were taken at the last assault. One company after the other of French infantry was even then marching over the fields to take up positions in the newly acquired territory. The trenches were turned around facing the other way, the shelters revised to meet the new conditions, and the underground retreats properly cleaned out. "Did you ever see anything so awful as this?" said Alfred with a shudder, as they gazed on the great corpse-filled trench directly behind the crest of the ridge. "There must have been an infantry charge here," said Ralph. "Quite right," said the infantry officer. "They made the last stand here. It was really pitiful to see them, as our infantry came up the hill. The shells were exploding over them, not a hundred meters ahead of our foremost columns. They tried to fight, it must be said to their credit, but they were crazed by the terror of that fire." "How far are we from our battery?" asked Ralph. "I should say about three kilometers," said the lieutenant. "Just to think of it," responded Alfred, "about two and a half miles distant, and see what happened here." It would be merely a repetition of the same sights over and over to describe the scenes. Every sort of accoutrement, guns, swords, knapsacks, articles of food, clothing of every description, kitchen utensils, and at one place a poor dog, horribly mutilated, made up the scene and afforded a gruesome picture. "What is this?" said Alfred, as he stopped and picked up an envelope. It was sealed, and had not, evidently, reached the one for whom it was intended. "What shall I do with it?" asked Alfred. "Turn it over to the searchers,—the ones who are now burying the dead," replied the lieutenant. Alfred marched across the open and handed it to the officer. "I found this at the corner of the field," he explained. The officer acknowledged the receipt with a bow, and held it up. "Lieutenant Johann Schroeder, 10th Infantry," the inscription read. "Have you the name there?" he asked, looking at the clerk. The latter examined the index. "Yes; here it is; body in the tenth lateral, over to the left," so the letter was deposited in a huge sack carried by two assistants. [Illustration: _The Deadly Shrapnel Shell_]