It was an hour before nightfall, and firing along the front had partly ceased. The men in the advance line were lying prone, thankful for the surcease offered by the approaching night. Heard behind them was a swishing sound. Hicks turned, forgot even for the moment the piteous moans of the shell-shocked man when he saw troops swiftly walking. “We’re going to be relieved. We’re going to be relieved.” The thought pounded through his brain. The oncoming troops were now near and distinct. Hicks could see the red, brimless stovepipe hats, the black, shiny faces, the picturesque and decorated tunics of the Foreign Legion. They carried small rifles and long knives and looked frightfully dangerous. Hicks reflected that these were the fellows who were supposed to treasure the ears of the enemy as keepsakes. Swiftly, their huge leg muscles bulging under their puttees, they walked through the wheat and passed. Hicks felt dismal. “Relief, hell. They’re going to attack.” And they were. As silent as ghosts they fled straight for the village. The enemy, seeing them, opened up with their rifles and machine-guns with extraordinary furiousness. The black soldiers advanced unhesitatingly. Some of them dropped flat, never to rise again of their own volition; others clasped a hand to the part of the body where a bullet had entered and turned back, walking quickly and nervously, but failing to speak. Hicks had never seen so many men wounded without their exclaiming. Usually, when some American was struck he would cry some such absurdly obvious statement as “Oh, my God, I’m hit.” A German would shriek his inevitable “Kamerad.” A Frenchman would jabber. But these fellows—Hicks marvelled. But the remaining five hundred yards were too difficult to cross. Where five of the fleet blacks set valiantly forth, but one of them returned. * * * * *