did form."

"They were just like athletes who want to be first off the mark, or
rather perhaps I should say like bloodhounds on the scent."

"Still, just to encourage them a little, don't you know, I pulled out my
revolver, showed it to my little ones, and said very gently that the first
man who hesitated to advance under the fire of the German guns
would be a dead man before he took a step to the rear. (In every
regiment there are one or two men who want encouraging in this
way.) Of course, they all laughed at me. They wanted to get near
those German guns, and nearer still to the gunners. That was before
they knew the exact meaning of shell-fire. Well, they did good things,
those Zouaves of mine. But it wasn't pleasant work. We fought from
village to village, very close fighting, so that sometimes we could look
into our enemy's eyes. The Moroccans were with us, the native
troops, unlike my boys who are Frenchmen, and they were like
demons with their bayonet work."

"Several of the villages were set on fire by the Germans before they
retired from them, and soon great columns of smoke with pillars of
flame and clouds of flying sparks rose up into the blue sky, and made
a picture of hell there. For really it was hell on earth.

"Our gunners were shelling the Germans from pillar to post, as it
were, and strewing the ground with their dead. It was across and
among these dead bodies that we infantry had to charge. They lay
about in heaps, masses of bleeding flesh. It made me sick, even in
the excitement of it all."

"The enemy's quickfirers were marvellous. I am bound to say we did
not get it all our own way. They always manoeuvre them in the same
style, and very clever it is. First of all they mask them with infantry.
Then when the French charge they reveal them and put us to the test
under the most withering fire. It is almost impossible to stand against
it, and in this case we had to retire after each rush for about 250
metres."

"Then quick as lightning the Germans got their mitrailleuses across
the ground which we had yielded to them, and waited for us to come
on again; when they repeated the same operation."

"I can tell you it was pretty trying to the nerves, but my Zouaves were
very steady in spite of fairly heavy losses."

"In a village named Penchard there was some very sharp fighting,
and some of our artillery were posted hereabouts. Presently a
German aeroplane came overhead circling round in reconnaiss