And eyes of iron are glaring at us from behind. The swamp! The swamp! The thought suddenly uprears its head in me. We are running blindly straight into the swamp. Only another twenty paces now--already the foremost have reached it, and, senseless in their terror, jump into it--the water spurts up high--and now--what has happened now? Their feet are stuck fast--they tilt over forwards--they claw for something to hold on to--the rifle flies out of their hand--and face forward they plunge into the water--and close on our heels they come stamping up--the tight-packed, maddened mob.... "Back! Get back!" But every one has ceased to be conscious of what he is doing. And though our eyes start out of our head at the terror we see in front of us, Death is breathing its cold breath into the back of our neck. And into the gurgling water, wriggling with bodies and alive with lungs, over human bodies writhing beneath the water, Death tramples us to the other bank. Any man who goes down is lost, for they are pressing on behind us past all holding. The water is already up to our armpits. But there is a firm bottom beneath our feet. True, the bottom may clutch at us, and cling round our feet. True, the water may bite savagely at our flesh with teeth and with nails. But whatever may be trying to draw us down to itself from below, we trample underfoot. The shoulders of a form emerge; they plunge down again, and disappear. The faces of drowning men emerge and cleave to the light, and sink gurgling into the depths. Lost arms wave about in the air and try to find support on the surface of the water. We dodge these arms, for whomever they may seize they draw down with them to Death. And in the thick of this hurly-burly of Death, amid these whistling lungs, amid these panting, red, panic-stricken faces, the cloud of shells strikes home, and hurls its hail of iron overhead. The water spurts up in jets. And again! Explosions and screams, and the hissing of lead, and the shrieks of men, and blood and water foam up, till no one knows whether he has been hit or is still alive; for in front of me--so close that I could clutch it--I see a jugular vein, ripped through, spurting in an arch like a fountain--and in his blood the fellow hit staggers back, and blood and howls surfeit the black flood, until it is at length reddened with human blood--Get on! get on! Don't look round! There--the other bank over there! There Life is standing and spreading out his arms toward us. Get on! Before they have murdered all of us in this swamp! Get up! Get up! Thank God! The water's falling! Only up to the hips now--only up to the knees. And now---- Our feet leap on to the dry, blessed land and strike forward beyond all control, and race over the field. They refuse to obey any orders. They are racing--racing toward the protection of the forest beckoning us of its mercy.