to abandon the position definitely.

"Make haste, comrades!" Honore exclaimed. "Even if she is fit for no
further service we'll carry her off; those fellows shan't have her!"

To save the gun, even as men risk their life to save the flag; that was
his idea. And he had not ceased to speak when he was stricken down as by
a thunderbolt, his right arm torn from its socket, his left flank laid
open. He had fallen upon his gun he loved so well, and lay there as
if stretched on a bed of honor, with head erect, his unmutilated face
turned toward the enemy, and bearing an expression of proud defiance
that made him beautiful in death. From his torn jacket a letter had
fallen to the ground and lay in the pool of blood that dribbled slowly
from above.

The only lieutenant left alive shouted the order: "Bring up the
limbers!"

A caisson had exploded with a roar that rent the skies. They were
obliged to take the horses from another caisson in order to save a gun
of which the team had been killed. And when, for the last time, the
drivers had brought up their smoking horses and the guns had been
limbered up, the whole battery flew away at a gallop and never stopped
until they reached the edge of the wood of la Garenne, nearly twelve
hundred yards away.

Maurice had seen the whole. He shivered with horror, and murmured
mechanically, in a faint voice:

"Oh! poor fellow, poor fellow!"

In addition to this feeling of mental distress he had a horrible
sensation of physical suffering, as if something was gnawing at his
vitals. It was the animal portion of his nature asserting itself; he
was at the end of his endurance, was ready to sink with hunger. His
perceptions were dimmed, he was not even conscious of the dangerous
position the regiment was in now it no longer was protected by the
battery. It was more than likely that the enemy would not long delay to
attack the plateau in force.

"Look here," he said to Jean, "I _must_ eat--if I am to be killed for it
the next minute, I must eat."

He opened his knapsack and, taking out the bread with shaking hands,
set his teeth in it voraciously. The bullets were whistling above their
heads, two shells exploded only a few yards away, but all was as naught
to him in comparison with his craving hunger.

"Will you have some, Jean?"

The corporal was watching him with hungry eyes and a stupid expression
on his face; his stomach was also twinging him.

"Yes, I don't care if I do; this suff