The words became distinct. They were quite near--in the hillock that we could dimly see like an oasis: and yet we could not hear what they said. The sounds were muddled, and we did not understand them. "What are they saying?" asked one of us in a curious tone. Instinctively we stopped trying to find a way in. A doubt, a painful idea was seizing us. Then, clearly enunciated, there rang out these words--"Achtung!--Zweites Geschutz--Schuss--" Farther back, the report of a gun answered the telephonic command. Horror and stupefaction nailed us to the spot at first--"Where are we? Oh, Christ, where are we?" Turning right about face, slowly in spite of all, borne down anew by exhaustion and dismay, we took flight, as overwhelmed by weariness as if we had many wounds, pulled back by the mud towards the enemy country, and retaining only just enough energy to repel the thought of the sweetness it would have been to let ourselves die. We came to a sort of great plain. We halted and threw ourselves on the ground on the side of a mound, and leaned back upon it, unable to make another step. And we moved no more, my shadowy comrades nor I. The rain splashed in our faces, streamed down our backs and chests, ran down from our knees and filled our boots. We should perhaps be killed or taken prisoners when day came. But we thought no more of anything. We could do no more; we knew no more. XXIV The Dawn WE are waiting for daylight in the place where we sank to the ground. Sinister and slow it comes, chilling and dismal, and expands upon the livid landscape. The rain has ceased to fall--there is none left in the sky. The leaden plain and its mirrors of sullied water seem to issue not only from the night but from the sea. Drowsy or half asleep, sometimes opening our eyes only to close them again, we attend the incredible renewal of light, paralyzed with cold and broken with fatigue. Where are the trenches? We see lakes, and between the lakes there are lines of milky and motionless water. There is more water even than we had thought. It has taken everything and spread everywhere, and the prophecy of the men in the night has come true. There are no more trenches; those canals are the trenches enshrouded. It is a universal flood. The battlefield is not sleeping; it is dead. Life may be going on down yonder perhaps, but we cannot see so far. Swaying painfully, like a sick man, in the terrible encumbering clasp of my greatcoat, I half raise myself to look at it all. There are three monstrously shapeless forms beside me. One of them--it is Paradis, in an amazing armor of mud, with a swelling at the waist that stands for his cartridge pouches--gets up also. The others are asleep, and make no movement.