In spite of the fatigue clinging to my limbs, I sprang forward in my turn with all my strength, fiercely pursuing the signs of an overloaded and rattling body which ran in front; and I found myself again in a trench, breathless.

In my passage I had glimpses of a somber field, bullet-smacked and hole pierced, with silent blots outspread or doubled, and a litter of crosses and posts, as black and fantastic as tall torches extinguished, all under a firmament where day and night immensely fought.
"I believe I saw some corpses," I said to him who marched in front of me; and there was a break in my voice.
"_You've_ just left your village," he replied; "you bet there's some stiffs about here!" I laughed also, in the delight of having got past.

We began again to march one behind another, swaying about, hustled by the narrowness of this furrow they had scooped to the ancient depth of a grave, panting under the load, dragged towards the earth by the earth and pushed forward by will-power, under a sky shrilling with the dizzy flight of bullets, tiger-striped with red, and in some seconds saturated with light.

At forks in the way we turned sometimes right and sometimes left, all touching each other, the whole huge body of the company fleeing 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.