We walked silently among the dead. Where the casualties had been heaviest, we counted seventeen bodies within a circle thirty paces in diameter. Every man of the group had fallen forward with his bayonet pointing straight out in front of him. Some had been running with such _élan_ that in falling their shoulders had fairly plowed into the soft ground. They had nearly all been killed by shrapnel fire, which in most cases had killed cleanly. We found one, however, who had been badly mashed by a shell which had burst in the ground at his feet, making a deep, oblong hole six feet long into which his shattered body had fallen. The metal identification tags, one of which every soldier wears, had not been collected. These are removed by the burying squad, and sent home as announcers of the decease. This group had all been so recently killed that their faces were very lifelike. One found oneself repeating "How natural they look!" and one could pretty well judge what sort of men they had been in life. Here was a slight smooth-faced blond-haired boy, who must have been dearly beloved by the women of his family. Here again a serious, kindly, middle-aged man whose face bore a curious expression of preoccupation. I caught myself thinking, "I should like to have known him." We found one who in his dying agony had evidently taken from his pocket a letter which now lay a sodden mass in his dead hand. We could not resist that mute appeal, but picked the letter carefully from his stiff fingers to be dried out later and delivered, if possible, to the woman to whom it was addressed. As one looked at all these useless, cumbersome bits of carrion which no one in the rush of war had had time to remove, one could not but remember how each one had been suddenly wrenched from a useful life and in death had somewhere left a broken family. The dead do not have the tragic expressions with which painters credit them. Those who have been instantly killed generally wear grotesque expressions. Some look bored--others have a silly look of surprise, as if a practical joke had just been played upon them. These grotesque expressions are much more frightful than could be any indicative of suffering. Those who have died slowly are usually propped up against something in a sitting posture, and their faces express happiness or perfect peace. * * * * *