Day broke fully. From above, the hot sun beat cruelly upon the earth. The helmets of the men were like hot frying-pans. Sweat soaked through the padding in the helmets and ran down the men’s faces in tiny, dirty rivulets. Their skin, beneath their woollen shirts and breeches, itched unbearably. At the knees, where the breeches tightly fitted, the shell powder had soaked through and was biting the flesh. There was a sameness about the expressions on the men’s faces. As yet it was barely perceptible. The mouths had set in certain rigid lines. The lids of the eyes were narrowed, and beneath them the pupils reflected only a dull apathy. Of each man the shoulders sagged as if bowed down with a dreadful weight. * * * * * Hicks lay against the sloping wall of the ravine, his head peeping over, watching an airplane circle lazily above. The drone of its engine was like some enormous bluebottle fly. It was soothing. A slight breeze rippled the wheat. “Ah,” he breathed. But on the breeze was carried a stomach-turning stench. It was sweet and putrid and seemed to take substance around the nostrils. As the heat of the day grew more, the odor strengthened until Hicks felt as if he were submerged in it up to his eyes. As the sun glided out of sight the odor became less evident, until at last, as the shadows were thrown full length, it ceased entirely to be. * * * * * Lieutenant Bedford made his way along the ravine. “Where’s Sergeant Harriman?” Harriman poked his pallid face out of his burrow. “Yes, sir?” “Oh, there you are, Harriman. Pick out four men to go after rations. Right after dark.” “Shall I go along in charge?” “Go if you want to. Ryan and I can take care of things all right.” The ration party tracked through the thick woods, purpled with late evening. Trees stretched gaunt arms in awkward gestures toward the sombre-colored sky, through which lights gaily winked and danced. Under foot were objects over which they tried to step without touching. Now and then a foot would strike a dead man’s pack or his body, and some one would draw back, mutter “Damn,” feeling as if he had committed sacrilege. Branches of trees, half torn from the trunk by shell explosion, barred their way. On they walked, their hands flung out in front of them, and walking as closely to each other as was possible. Passing one place in the woods Harriman thought: “Here’s where Halvorsen got killed.” They went on farther. An open space in the woods reminded him that it was there that Kahl received three machine-gun bullets through his head. “He’s probably rotten by this time.” Harriman shivered to his marrow. It seemed hours before they got out of the woods and into the field through which a small dusty road ran toward the village where they had first gone into action.