They are simple men further simplified, in whom the merely primitive instincts have been accentuated by the force of circumstances--the instinct of self-preservation, the hard-gripped hope of living through, the joy of food, of drink, and of sleep. And at intervals they are cries and dark shudders of humanity that issue from the silence and the shadows of their great human hearts. When we can no longer see clearly, we hear down there the murmur of a command, which comes nearer and rings loud--"Second half-section! Muster!" We fall in; it is the call. "Gee up!" says the corporal. We are set in motion. In front of the tool-depot there is a halt and trampling. To each is given a spade or pickax. An N.C.O. presents the handles in the gloom: "You, a spade; there, hop it! You a spade, too; you a pick. Allons, hurry up and get off." We leave by the communication trench at right angles to our own, and straight ahead towards the changeful frontier, now alive and terrible. Up in the somber sky, the strong staccato panting of an invisible aeroplane circles in wide descending coils and fills infinity. In front, to right and left, everywhere, thunderclaps roll with great glimpses of short-lived light in the dark-blue sky. ------------ [note 1:] The popular and international name for a French soldier. Its literal meaning is "hairy, shaggy," but the word has conveyed for over a century the idea of the virility of a Samson, whose strength lay in his locks.--Tr. [note 2:] 6250 miles. [note 3:] Pourvu que les civils tiennent. In the early days of the war it was a common French saying that victory was certain--"if the civilians hold out."--Tr. III The Return RELUCTANTLY the ashen dawn is bleaching the still dark and formless landscape. Between the declining road on the right that falls into the gloom, and the black cloud of the Alleux Wood--where we hear the convoy teams assembling and getting under way--a field extends. We have reached it, we of the 6th Battalion, at the end of the night. We have piled arms, and now, in the center of this circle of uncertain light, our feet in the mist and mud, we stand in dark clusters (that yet are hardly blue), or as solitary phantoms; and the heads of all are turned towards the road that comes from "down there." We are waiting for the rest of the regiment, the 5th Battalion, who were in the first line and left the trenches after us. Noises; "There they are!" A long and shapeless mass appears in the west and comes down out of the night upon the dawning road. At last! It is ended, the accursed shift that began at six o'clock yesterday evening and has lasted all night, and now the last man has stepped from the last communication trench. This time it has been an awful sojourn in the trenches. The 18th company was foremost and has been cut up, eighteen killed and fifty wounded--one in three less in four days. And this without attack--by bombardment alone.