“Wait a minute there, buddy.” A muddy, wizened-face soldier, advancing with an open razor in his hand, snipped a button from the German’s tunic. “There, that goes home to my gal.” * * * * * The platoon had been subjected to heavy bombardment since, two weeks earlier, they had occupied the ravine, but upon this particular afternoon there was a force, a spitefulness, an overwhelming, dull, sickening insistence to the dropping, exploding shells that made each one of the men feel that, as any of them would have expressed it, “one of them seabags has got my name marked on it in big letters.” The shells hammered over, shaking the sides of the ravine as they broke and sending particles of flying steel through the air, to land with a “zip” on the ground. Men called for stretcher bearers until there were no more stretcher bearers, and, as it seemed, as if there were no more men to call. And meanwhile the thick, pungent smoke from the exploding shells was filling up the ravine and seeking out the throats and eyes of the men, to blind and choke them. Before it was over there were men, ostrich-like, with their heads in their burrows as far as they could get them. Many of them were blubbering, not so much from fright as from nerves that had broken under the insistent battering of the shells. But when it ended they were ready at the call to stand by to repel an enemy of any size. It was felt certain that this time there would be an attack by the Germans to regain the woods from which they had been driven. The men were working the bolts of their rifles, or trying to check the tears that flowed from their eyes, inflamed by the heavy smoke. But while they were making ready to stand off the attack the company commander sent a runner to Lieutenant Bedford, telling him that the platoon would be relieved for the night by other men, and that they were to return farther back in the woods and rest in case there was no attack. Gasping and choking, the platoon made its way out of the ravine and up the hill. Exhausted, they dropped into the holes, slightly deeper than their own, that the relieving men had occupied. The captain, with his orderly and his runners in holes around him, was lying back on the ground, peacefully smoking a cigarette. But the attack which the officers had anticipated failed to be made. The sun withdrew from the scene and a pale gold moon took its place, stars peeped out like eyes, and the air became thin and chilly. The men were beginning to feel that they were to enjoy a night’s sleep.