The enemy was approaching and we wondered whether we were going to be relieved or reinforced. Alas, no! There was nothing for it but to go on watching, with our bayonets ready, whilst the "big blackies" fell round us all the time. Quite near to us, on the Keyem road and in the park, huge trees were mown clean down and enormous craters, with charred edges, hollowed by these murderous engines of warfare. Sometimes fragments of the shells fell at our feet, or passed over our shelter with a whizz, burying themselves deeply in the ground. Certain projectiles entered the ground without bursting, causing us great anxiety. Our flasks had long been empty and we were literally dying of thirst. Our Commander asked if a few men would volunteer to fetch some wine from the town. I went with three or four comrades. Dixmude was a lamentable sight. The streets were all torn up and filled with ruins and rubbish of all kinds. The houses were all destroyed and as empty as eggshells. What was underneath all that? Probably, both living and dead, riches and art-treasures. I saw the body of a poor mother, with haggard eyes and clenched teeth. She seemed to me like a reproach to the Germans for their odious war. Near her was a young child, which looked as though it were sleeping. What a number of wrecked houses! Furniture, carpets, and curtains strewed the ground, all this saccaged by man returned to a savage state. If the enemy should take the unfortunate city, I thought, he will only have conquered ruins. At the relief station, I found my Lieutenant stretched out on the ground between two Boches. One of these was groaning all the time, the other one was a very young man, scarcely seventeen, I should think. To see my Lieutenant near these two gave me a pang. We managed to get some wine and then returned to the trench. The distribution of this precious liquid caused our men a little joy and made them more hopeful. Each of them was ready to go to work again with fresh energy. A little later, my friend Job went with a few other men to get some more wine and some cartridges. They were less lucky than we were, for one of them had both legs broken. Another one had the good luck to escape uninjured, although the bottle he was holding was smashed by a bullet. When the darkness came on again, things looked very threatening. After sprinkling our trenches with projectiles of every calibre, the German Artillery bombarded the town, in order to prevent any reserves from coming to our relief. The enemy then came out from a wood and moved a little to our right, in the direction of the cemetery, where our 2nd Battalion was lying in wait. The shells fell there in quantities, damaging the tombs and causing a fearful scene. The vaults and tombs opened under the fire and coffins were exposed to view. When our courageous soldiers fell, in the midst of this furnace, we saw what will probably never be seen again, the living buried alive and the dead brought out of their graves....