alls me from the other side of the trench, a man sitting on
the ground and leaning against a stake. It is Papa Ramure. Through his
unbuttoned greatcoat and jacket I see bandages around his chest. "The
ambulance men have been to tuck me up," he says, in a weak and
stertorous voice, "but they can't take me away from here before
evening. But I know all right that I'm petering out every minute."

He jerks his head. "Stay a bit," he asks me. He is much moved, and the
tears are flowing. He offers his hand and holds mine. He wants to say a
lot of things to me and almost to make confession. "I was a straight
man before the war," he says, with trickling tears; "I worked from
morning to night to feed my little lot. And then I came here to kill
Boches. And now, I've got killed. Listen, listen, listen, don't go
away, listen to me--"

"I must take Joseph back--he's at the end of his strength. I'll come
back afterwards."

Ramure lifted his streaming eyes to the wounded man. "Not only living,
but wounded! Escaped from death! Ah, some women and children are lucky!
All right, take him, take him, and come back--I hope I shall be waiting
for you--"

Now we must climb the other slope of the ravine, and we enter the
deformed and maltreated ditch of the old Trench 97.

Suddenly a frantic whistling tears the air and there is a shower of
shrapnel above us. Meteorites flash and scatter in fearful flight in
the heart of the yellow clouds. Revolving missiles rush through the
heavens to break and burn upon the bill, to ransack it and exhume the
old bones of men; and the thundering flames multiply themselves along
an even line.

It is the barrage fire beginning again. Like children we cry, "Enough,
enough!"

In this fury of fatal engines, this mechanical cataclysm that pursues
us through space, there is something that surpasses human strength and
will, something supernatural. Joseph, standing with his hand in mine,
looks over his shoulder at the storm of rending explosions. He bows his
head like an imprisoned beast, distracted: "What, again! Always, then!"
he growls; "after all we've done and all we've seen--and now it begins
again! Ah, non, non!"

He falls on his knees, gasps for breath, and throws a futile look of
full hatred before him and behind him. He repeats, "It's never
finished, never!"

I take him by the arm and raise him. "Come; it'll be finished for you."

We must dally there awhile before climbing, so I will go and bring b