A dangerous detachment this, a lethargic calm against which we must be on our guard. Death should merely annihilate our will to live, not weaken it beforehand. This lesson was unconsciously taught us by one of our comrades, Captain D----, who was twice wounded and twice went back to the front, as he told us one evening at Verdun the story of his second wound. He was lying on the ground with his chest bared; his bâtman, who would not leave him, had also been wounded, but slightly, in the shoulder. Both were Bretons, both religious, and they had been to Communion together in the morning before starting off for the battle. “We were there, side by side,” he said, “and the rifle-shots were growing more distant. I thought that I was going to die, and a great exultation came over me. My love for my wife and child, who, I felt, were soon to lose me, was in no way altered. I don’t know how to explain it to you: nothing weighed upon my mind any longer, and I seemed to be set free from my closest ties. How should I ever again meet with such an opportunity of dying? Everything within me and around me was light and easy as the flight of a bird. I was no longer in pain. Even the difficulty I felt in breathing gave me a sort of happiness. I seemed to be lifted up to God, as a leaf is lifted by the wind. Then I said to my bâtman: ‘You are going away. You are not seriously hurt. I will stay here, I am quite ready to die.’ He would not listen to me, he wanted to help me to rise, and, being unable to do so, tried to carry me, in spite of the pain in his shoulder. I would not allow him to lift me: ‘Leave me, I tell you, I want to die here.’ He stopped and looked at me as if he did not quite understand, and then, a little timidly at first, but soon growing bolder, he rebuked me: ‘I beg pardon, sir, but what you are doing is not a Christian thing to do.’ I was shocked, I admit, I who thought myself so near to God. He went on: ‘Not Christian at all. God has nothing to give you but life. You are not going to offend Him.’--‘But when it is He that is calling me?’--‘If He calls you, you will hear Him plainly. Meanwhile you are still alive. And the life that He gives us is for us to enjoy as long as we can--for His sake, of course. You are not going to affront Him.’ And I let myself be carried away in order not to affront God.” Night has now fallen over Verdun. Here are the stretcher-bearers come to look for my neighbour. The town is already shrouded in darkness, while its girdle of hills seems still to float like a streamer in the light. It is time to go down again. The realization of death at this moment demands action of us, not reflection.... VII THE ENEMY’S EVIDENCE