re
blinking and weeping and obscured. The view before us is blocked by a
flashing avalanche that fills space.

It is the barrage fire. We have to go through that whirlwind of fire
and those fearful showers that vertically fall. We are passing through.
We are through it, by chance. Here and there I have seen forms that
spun round and were lifted up and laid down, illumined by a brief
reflection from over yonder. I have glimpsed strange faces that uttered
some sort of cry--you could see them without hearing them in the roar
of annihilation. A brasier full of red and black masses huge and
furious fell about me, excavating the ground, tearing it from under my
feet, throwing me aside like a bouncing toy. I remember that I strode
over a smoldering corpse, quite black, with a tissue of rosy blood
shriveling on him; and I remember, too, that the skirts of the
greatcoat flying next to me had caught fire, and left a trail of smoke
behind. On our right, all along Trench 97, our glances were drawn and
dazzled by a rank of frightful flames, closely crowded against each
other like men.

Forward!

Now, we are nearly running. I see some who fall solidly flat, face
forward, and others who founder meekly, as though they would sit down
on the ground. We step aside abruptly to avoid the prostrate dead,
quiet and rigid, or else offensive, and also--more perilous
snares!--the wounded that hook on to you, struggling.

The International Trench! We are there. The wire entanglements have
been torn up into long roots and creepers, thrown afar and coiled up,
swept away and piled in great drifts by the guns. Between these big
bushes of rain-damped steel the ground is open and free.

The trench is not defended. The Germans have abandoned it, or else a
first wave has already passed over it. Its interior bristles with
rifles placed against the bank. In the bottom are scattered corpses.
From the jumbled litter of the long trench, hands emerge that protrude
from gray sleeves with red facings, and booted legs. In places the
embankment is destroyed and its woodwork splintered--all the flank of
the trench collapsed and fallen into an indescribable mixture. In other
places, round pits are yawning. And of all that moment I have best
retained the vision of a whimsical trench covered with many-colored
rags and tatters. For the making of their sandbags the Germans had used
cotton and woolen stuffs of motley design pillaged from some
house-furnisher's sho