p; and all this hotch-potch of colored remnants,
mangled and frayed, floats and flaps and dances in our faces.

We have spread out in the trench. The lieutenant, who has jumped to the
other side, is stooping and summoning us with signs and shouts--"Don't
stay there; forward, forward!"

We climb the wall of the trench with the help of the sacks, of weapons,
and of the backs that are piled up there. In the bottom of the ravine
the soil is shot-churned, crowded with jetsam, swarming with prostrate
bodies. Some are motionless as blocks of wood; others move slowly or
convulsively. The barrage fire continues to increase its infernal
discharge behind us on the ground that we have crossed. But where we
are at the foot of the rise it is a dead point for the artillery.

A short and uncertain calm follows. We are less deafened and look at
each other. There is fever in the eyes, and the cheek-bones are
blood-red. Our breathing snores and our hearts drum in our bodies.

In haste and confusion we recognize each other, as if we had met again
face to face in a nightmare on the uttermost shores of death. Some
hurried words are cast upon this glade in hell--"It's you! "--"Where's
Cocon?"--"Don't know."--"Have you seen the captain? "--"No."--"Going
strong?"--"Yes."

The bottom of the ravine is crossed and the other slope rises opposite.
We climb in Indian file by a stairway rough-hewn in the ground: "Look
out!" The shout means that a soldier half-way up the steps has been
struck in the loins by a shell-fragment; he falls with his arms
forward, bareheaded, like the diving swimmer. We can see the shapeless
silhouette of the mass as it plunges into the gulf. I can almost see
the detail of his blown hair over the black profile of his face.

We debouch upon the height. A great colorless emptiness is outspread
before us. At first one can see nothing but a chalky and stony plain,
yellow and gray to the limit of sight. No human wave is preceding ours;
in front of us there is no living soul, but the ground is peopled with
dead--recent corpses that still mimic agony or sleep, and old remains
already bleached and scattered to the wind, half assimilated by the
earth.

As soon as our pushing and jolted file emerges, two men close to me are
hit, two shadows are hurled to the ground and roll under our feet, one
with a sharp cry, and the other silently, as a felled ox. Another
disappears with the caper of a lunatic, as if he had been snatched
awa