f without looking at him
and without knowing who he is, and shouts at him in a breaking voice
almost choked with exertion: "Let me go, let me go, nom de Dieu!
They'll pick you up directly--don't worry."

The other man sinks to the ground, and his face, plastered with a
scarlet mask and void of all expression, turns in every direction;
while Volpatte, already in the distance, automatically repeats between
his teeth, "Don't worry," with a steady forward gaze on the line.

A shower of bullets spirts around me, increasing the number of those
who suddenly halt, who collapse slowly, defiant and gesticulating, of
those who dive forward solidly with all the body's burden, of the
shouts, deep, furious, and desperate, and even of that hollow and
terrible gasp when a man's life goes bodily forth in a breath. And we
who are not yet stricken, we look ahead, we walk and we run, among the
frolics of the death that strikes at random into our flesh.

The wire entanglements--and there is one stretch of them intact. We go
along to where it has been gutted into a wide and deep opening. This is
a colossal funnel-hole, formed of smaller funnels placed together, a
fantastic volcanic crater, scooped there by the guns.

The sight of this convulsion is stupefying; truly it seems that it must
have come from the center of the earth. Such a rending of virgin strata
puts new edge on our attacking fury, and none of us can keep from
shouting with a solemn shake of the head--even just now when words are
but painfully torn from our throats--"Ah, Christ! Look what hell we've
given 'em there! Ah, look!"

Driven as if by the wind, we mount or descend at the will of the
hollows and the earthy mounds in the gigantic fissure dug and blackened
and burned by furious flames. The soil clings to the feet and we tear
them out angrily. The accouterments and stuffs that cover the soft
soil, the linen that is scattered about from sundered knapsacks,
prevent us from sticking fast in it, and we are careful to plant our
feet in this debris when we jump into the holes or climb the hillocks.

Behind us voices urge us--"Forward, boys, forward, nome de Dieu!"

"All the regiment is behind us!" they cry. We do not turn round to see,
but the assurance electrifies our rush once more.

No more caps are visible behind the embankment of the trench we are
nearing. Some German dead are crumbling in front of it, in pinnacled
heaps or extended lines. We are there. The parapet t