It was a march that appeared to us to last a century, and certainly Dante's imagination, in his visions of hell, never surpassed the horrors of it. The passage was narrow and skirted the parapet of the Yser. Its access was so difficult and trying, that it was no use thinking of removing the dead which obstructed it. We had to imitate the serpent, the toad, and the mole. In order to pass the guard we were relieving, the men had to lie down flat and we had to crawl over them. No one spoke a word. Shrapnels kept exploding and bullets whizzed along continually, flattening themselves against the parapet. I saw some of them ploughing up the earth scarcely twenty centimetres above the heads of my comrades, and I was afraid each time that, in rebounding, they would wound one or another of them. We were all wedged in as though in a vice. At times, we had to advance quickly, bent nearly double, our backs almost broken, at times we had to crawl along, pushing ourselves onward with our elbows and knees, letting go our shields which encumbered us and which, knocking against the sides, made a sonorous noise. When we came to embattlements, watched as we were by the marksmen posted on the other side of the Yser, we had to rush for our lives. Our faces were bathed in perspiration. Suddenly, we came across a dark, motionless mass on the ground. We thought it might be one of the engineers at work. "Hi there, what are you doing? Answer!" ordered the Lieutenant. Shaking his arm, we found that it dropped lifeless. "Forward! over the dead man!" was our order. Shuddering, and gasping for breath, we obeyed. Feeling for him with our feet and slipping over his head, we went on our way. Presently we had reached the spot known as "the house in ruins." The parapet had been torn away by a shell, and this might expose us to view. We had to climb and jump at the same time. Horrors! I fell with my hand on the icy face of a dead man. The German Artillery now came into play. The devilish Schoorbakke battery took the dyke by enfilade and bombarded us. The shells arrived whizzing along and bursting with a frightful noise, making the dyke crumble, and sprinkling us with all kinds of rubbish. There was a second's calm. By the livid light of the fuses, a horrible sight was to be seen, living men swarming along the passage among human fragments in a state of decomposition, the most appalling and terrifying wrecks of humanity imaginable. Horror, repulsion, and disgust were what we felt, but we were compelled to master our feelings. We had to be superhuman. The perspiration ran from our faces on to the dead men, as we climbed over them. And over our heads the bullets never ceased pouring down, whilst the shells whizzed along and the fuses kept lighting us up.