eing blindly towards its bourne.

For the last time they halted us in the middle of the night. I was so
weary that I propped my knees against the wet wall and remained
kneeling for some blissful minutes.

My sentry turn began immediately, and the lieutenant posted me at a
loophole. He made me put my face to the hole and explained to me that
there was a wooded slope, right in front of us, of which the bottom was
occupied by the enemy; and to the right of us, three hundred yards
away, the Chauny road--"They're there." I had to watch the black
hollow of the little wood, and at every star-shell the creamy expanse
which divided our refuge from the distant hazy railing of the trees
along the road. He told me what to do in case of alarm and left me
quite alone.

Alone, I shivered. Fatigue had emptied my head and was weighing on my
heart. Going close to the loophole, I opened my eyes wide through the
enemy night, the fathomless, thinking night.

I thought I could see some of the dim shadows of the plain moving, and
some in the chasm of the wood, and everywhere! Affected by terror and
a sense of my huge responsibility, I could hardly stifle a cry of
anguish. But they did not move. The fearful preparations of the
shades vanished before my eyes and the stillness of lifeless things
showed itself to me.

I had neither knapsack nor pouches, and I wrapped myself in my blanket.
I remained at ease, encircled to the horizon by the machinery of war,
surmounted by claps of living thunder. Very gently, my vigil relieved
and calmed me. I remembered nothing more about myself. I applied
myself to watching. I saw nothing, I knew nothing.

After two hours, the sound of the natural and complaisant steps of the
sentry who came to relieve me brought me completely back to myself. I
detached myself from the spot where I had seemed riveted and went to
sleep in the "grotto."

The dug-out was very roomy, but so low that in one place one had to
crawl on hands and knees to slip under its rough and mighty roof. It
was full of heavy damp, and hot with men. Extended in my place on
straw-dust, my neck propped by my knapsack, I closed my eyes in
comfort. When I opened them, I saw a group of soldiers seated in a
circle and eating from the same dish, their heads blotted out in the
darkness of the low roof. Their feet, grouped round the dish, were
shapeless, black, and trickling, like stone disinterred. They ate in
common, without tabl