“But the struggle goes on without respite. It rages more and more furiously in the fog, a fog through which the rockets cleave a fiery trail and the red flames of the shell-bursts are constantly darting up. From all sides the bullets whistle around us. The youngsters of the 1916 class, now receiving their baptism of fire, cluster round the sides of the parapet. We officers and N.C.O.’s, our rifles in our hands, spur them on to fight. Very soon each finds his mark among the Boches, who can be seen--now that day has risen--gradually receding all along the hillsides of Vaux. “_Monday, May 22._--A cartridge-base of 130 mm. has entered my dug-out, broken my bâtman’s leg, and flattened itself out on the wall near my head. “_11 o’clock._--German counter-attack on the trench taken this morning by the 129th. Boche detachments are crossing the slopes. We fire at them; they can be seen lying down flat on the ground, then proceeding again at the double. There is one who still lies prone. He must have been hit. One must admit that they are brave soldiers, these fellows. “They have reached the trench. A hand-grenade duel begins. An appalling fire is directed at Fumin, through which other units of the 124th are to come as reinforcements. “To our left, Douaumont has been recaptured since this morning. “_Wednesday, May 24--1 o’clock in the morning._--This time it is Hell indeed. The night is as black as ink. The little valley now seems a gigantic chasm girdled by fantastic hills, great sombre masses with vague outlines. At the bottom of the chasm the pools of the marsh glitter mysteriously in the dark. Dim vapours rise incessantly, accompanied by a terrific noise; red and white gleams cut athwart each other, so that out of the shadows there suddenly leap up mountains of darkness which appear for a moment to be encircled with light, then vanish at once into the night. “Through the heavy air, in which one can scarcely breathe for dust and smoke, there is all the time an invisible gliding to and fro, a frightful whistling, roaring, and crackling, and a spurting of flames that seems endless. “Is it the Twilight of the Gods? the _Götterdämmerung_ which haunted the sublime imagination of their barbarian giant? Is the earth yawning, and is that savage world whose monstrous maw wellnigh devoured humanity sinking into a fiery pit? No. It is merely an episode of the war: the German counter-attack on R¹. “Perhaps it will get a line in the communiqués. “_8 o’clock._--The hillsides of Vaux seem more sinister than ever. “All along the German trench that is being fought over, rigid bodies stiff and stark in blue greatcoats, black trails. The soil, in places, looks as if it were burnt. One corpse has been stripped of its greatcoat. “We can see that naked back in the sunlight.”...