The struggle continued like the day before and the day before that. It was the Battle of the Aisne continuing. The adversaries had retrenched themselves, and more particularly before Woumen. The Boches had piled up their embankments here. As I was out on observation every day, along the banks of the Yser, I could see their trenches spring out of the earth as though by magic, grow longer and become intersected with each other. They work with an ease and activity that is remarkable. In a place where there was nothing at night, a close network of trenches is to be seen the following day, together with a series of junctions and communication trenches. We fired violently, and overturned their mole-heaps, but a few minutes later we could see the rapid movement of earth turned over, and hear the noise of the iron spades, which would soon restore the damaged places. In the distance, a few patrols were moving about; a battery was passing by at a trot in a sheltered road. In the beet-root fields, to the south of Dixmude, could be seen long, grey figures lying in front of the German retrenchments. This was a neutral zone, within which no one could enter. All this was the ransom of the battles of the previous day, these were the dead bodies that could not be brought in. On the evening of the 23rd, we heard groans and shouts in bad French coming from the long grasses in the fields. This was the first time I had heard wounded men shouting. A few voices could be heard above the rest: "Help! Help! French ... wounded!"