Paul was very pale. Though he made an effort to stand stock-still, in order to master his emotion, his hands trembled a little and his chin quivered. On the Grand Jonas, three pieces of heavy artillery began thundering, three Rimailho guns, which had been hoisted into position by traction engines. And this, added to the stubborn work of the seventy-fives, assumed a terrible significance after Paul Delroze's words. The colonel and the group of officers around him kept silence. The situation was one of those in which the fatalities of war run riot in all their tragic horror, stronger than the forces of nature themselves and, like them, blind, unjust and implacable. There was nothing to be done. Not one of those men would have dreamt of asking for the gun-fire to cease or to slacken its activity. And Paul did not dream of it, either. He merely said: "It looks as if the enemy's fire was slowing down. Perhaps they are retreating. . . ." Three shells bursting at the far end of the town, behind the church, belied this hope. The colonel shook his head: "Retreating? Not yet. The place is too important to them; they are waiting for reinforcements and they won't give way until our regiments take part in the game . . . which won't be long now." In fact, the order to advance was brought to the colonel a few moments later. The regiment was to follow the road and deploy in the meadows on the right. "Come along, gentlemen," he said to his officers. "Sergeant Delroze's section will march in front. His objective will be the Château d'Ornequin. There are two little short cuts. Take both of them." "Very well, sir." All Paul's sorrow and rage were intensified in a boundless need for action; when he marched off with his men, he felt an inexhaustible strength, felt capable of conquering the enemy's position all by himself. He moved from one to the other with the untiring hurry of a sheep-dog hustling his flock. He never ceased advising and encouraging his men: "You're one of the plucky ones, old chap, I know, you're no shirker. . . . Nor you either . . . Only you think too much about your skin, you keep grumbling, when you ought to be cheerful. . . . Who's downhearted, eh? There's a bit more collar-work to do and we're going to do it without looking behind us, what?" Overhead, the shells followed their march in the air, whistling and moaning and exploding till they formed a sort of canopy of steel and grape-shot. "Duck your heads! Lie down flat!" cried Paul. He himself remained standing, indifferent to the flight of the enemy's shells. But with what terror he listened to our own, those coming from behind, from all the hills hard by, whizzing ahead of them to carry destruction and death. Where would this one fall? And that one, where would its murderous rain of bullets and splinters descend?