The day of June 1 is heavy with anguish. The storm slants off to the left, but the air remains sultry and oppressive. The Le Bazil ravine is lost, the dyke is crossed, the enemy break through into Fumin Wood. Of the three entrenchments that stake out the slopes between the pool and the fort, two are given up. R¹ still holds out, but will it be strong enough to prove an obstacle to the foe? Between R¹ and the fort, the La Courtine trench and that of Besançon, which ends in a winding at the double transverse gallery (north-eastern) that has been half-disembowelled, are manned by the 7th Company of the 101st Regiment. In front of the fort, the trench that protects it and, farther east, the Belfort trench are occupied by the 7th and 8th Companies of the 142nd Regiment, the 5th being on the plateau as a support. Will these troops suffice to check the onslaughts? Will they not be outflanked to the west by way of Fumin Wood, and to the east by Damloup and La Horgne bottom, against which the bombardment is raging? During the night there is great liveliness. The air shivers with countless lightning-flashes from the batteries, and with rockets going up or coming down in showers of stars. Darker than the night are the columns of smoke that rise from the shell-bursts. From the observing-station one of the guard signals movements at the foot of the slopes. No one sleeps, except a few wounded whose strength has completely failed them. Major Raynal, leaning on his stick, takes a turn round the corridors. He does not speak much, he is preoccupied, but his energetic air is reassuring. “The officers,” remarks an eye-witness, “were constantly walking through our midst; they were as calm and collected as usual, but we felt that the hour was at hand, for they looked into every detail.” At a quarter-past two, before sunrise, the enemy’s range lengthens, and the waves of the attack unroll themselves against our defenders in a semicircle. Our curtain fire came too late; the waves have been able to advance without being broken, and soon they are coming up to the trench of the fort opposite them, to the Besançon trench on the west, to the Belfort trench on the east.