Ah, I am a normal man!  I cling to life, and I have the consciousness of duty.  But at that moment I called from the bottom of my heart for the bullet which would have delivered me from life.

We return, with empty hands, in a sort of sinister comfort.  I remember, as we came in, a neighbor said to me—­or to some one else: 

“Sheets of corrugated iron are worse.”

The fatigues have to be stopped at dawn, although the engineers protest against the masses of stores which uselessly fill the depot.

We sleep from six to seven in the morning.  In the last traces of night we emigrate from the cave, blinking like owls.

“Where’s the juice?"[1] we ask.

[Footnote 1:  Coffee.]

There is none.  The cooks are not there, nor the mess people.  And they reply:—­

“Forward!”

In the dull and pallid morning, on the approaches to a village, there appear gardens, which no longer have human shape.  Instead of cultivation there are puddles and mud.  All is burned or drowned, and the walls scattered like bones everywhere; and we see the mottled and bedaubed shadows of soldiers.  War befouls the country as it does faces and hearts.

Our company gets going, gray and wan, broken down by the infamous weariness.  We halt in front of a hangar:—­

“Those that are tired can leave their packs,” the new sergeant advises; “they’ll find them again here.”

“If we’re leaving our packs, it means we’re going to attack,” says an ancient.

He says it, but he does not know.

One by one, on the dirty soil of the hangar, the knapsacks fall like bodies.  Some men, however, are mistrustful, and prefer to keep their packs.  Under all circumstances there are always exceptions.

Forward!  The same shouts put us again in movement.  Forward!  Come, get up!  Come on, march!  Subdue your refractory flesh; lift yourselves from your slumber as from a coffin, begin yourselves again without ceasing, give all that you can give—­Forward!  Forward!  It has to be.  It is a higher concern than yours, a law from above.  We do not know what it is.  We only know the step we make; and even by day one marches in the night.  And then, one cannot help it.  The vague thoughts and little wishes that we had in the days when we were concerned with ourselves are ended.  There is no way now of escaping from the wheels of fate, no way now of turning aside from fatigue and cold, disgust and pain.  Forward!  The world’s hurricane drives straight before them these terribly blind who grope with their rifles.

We have passed through a wood, and then plunged again into the earth.  We are caught in an enfilading fire.  It is terrible to pass in broad daylight in these communication trenches, at right angles to the lines, where one is in view all the way.  Some soldiers are hit and fall.  There are light eddies and brief obstructions in the places where they dive; and then the rest, a moment halted by the barrier, sometimes still living, frown in the wide-open direction of death, and say:—­