On the right, the two companies of the 321st, vigorously inspired by their leader, reach the ditch of the counterscarp in two waves; they are received by a curtain fire of bombs and machine-guns. Their ranks thinned by the fire of these machine-guns, which crown the parapet of the escarp, the first bomb-throwers fall back. In their turn, the two waves unroll themselves successively. Their leaders, however, are almost all struck, and that almost at once: Major Favre, killed by a bullet in his head; Lieutenant Ray, Second Lieutenant Rives, seriously wounded; Lieutenant Bellot, wounded but revived; Second Lieutenant Morel, killed; Second Lieutenant Billaud, killed; Second Lieutenant Desfougères, wounded; Lieutenant Aymé, wounded. What a roll of honour, what a book of martyrs! Robbed of so many officers, the troops waver. Captain and Adjutant Baume takes over the command of the battalion, restores order in the ranks, appoints the subordinate commanders, and holds himself in readiness to thrust back a counter-assault which, in face of the attitude of his men, does not come off after all. The scouts keep the regiment and the brigade posted as to the situation. However violent the curtain fires may be, they scour the volcanic country, the survivors taking the place of the wounded or the dead. Farther to the left, the attack of the 328th on the western front and the gorge has met with similar obstacles. For a few moments it has contrived to encircle the fort, but has not been able to hold its ground. It has even been impeded by the fire of our artillery upon the superstructure, to demolish the enemy machine-guns placed there. This attack, too, has had to fall back on the positions from which it set out. With what throbbing hearts have the various phases of the struggle been followed from the interior of the fort! To feel that one’s comrades are approaching, that they are there, that they are bringing deliverance, and then that they are shipwrecked when almost in harbour--what thrills of hope, and what a disappointment! At twenty past six in the morning the following message, half of it undecipherable, is transmitted from the fort: “... without having attained the objectives. Enemy machine-guns on top of the fort: these ought to have been shelled....” Where are they, then, these mysterious machine-guns which our artillery cannot manage to demolish? In what hidden lurking-place, under what shelter? This is an account of the battle so far as observation of it has been possible from the fort. A few minutes later the fort speaks again. This time its words ring with the grandeur of honourable achievement, and the sadness of grim resignation. Reopen the _Song of Roland_, at the verses where Roland, victorious but grievously wounded, journeys through the vale of Roncevaux in search of the peers of France, brings back their bodies one by one, and lays them at the feet of Archbishop Turpin, who will give them the last blessing: