We are swept along by an impetuosity that we submit to without knowing whence it comes.

We begin the ascent of the second hill which appears in the fallen night a mountain.
When fairly on it we hear round us, on all sides and quite close, a terrible pit-pat, and the long low hiss of mown grass.

There is a crackling afar in the sky, and they who glance back for a second in the awesome storm see the cloudy ridges catch fire horizontally.

It means that the enemy have mounted machine guns on the summit we have just abandoned, and that the place where we are is being hacked by the knives of bullets.

On all sides soldiers wheel and rattle down with curses, sighs and cries.