The others say simply, “Ah!”

Volpatte displays an intention of snatching a wink of sleep.  He settles himself on the ground with his back against one wall of the trench and his feet buttressed against the other wall.

We converse together on divers subjects.  Biquet tells the story of a rat he has seen:  “He was cheeky and comical, you know.  I’d taken off my trotter-cases, and that rat, he chewed all the edge of the uppers into embroidery.  Of course, I’d greased ’em.”

Volpatte, who is now definitely out of action, moves and says, “I can’t get to sleep for your gabbling.”

“You can’t make me believe, old fraud,” says Marthereau, “that you can raise a single snore with a shindy like this all round you.”

Volpatte replies with one.

* * * * * *

Fall in!  March!

We are changing our spot.  Where are they taking us to?  We have no idea.  The most we know is that we are in reserve, and that they may take us round to strengthen certain points in succession, or to clear the communication trenches, in which the regulation of passing troops is as complicated a job, if blocks and collisions are to be avoided, as it is of the trains in a busy station.  It is impossible to make out the meaning of the immense maneuver in which the rolling of our regiment is only that of a little wheel, nor what is going on in all the huge area of the sector.  But, lost in the network of deeps where we go and come without end, weary, harassed and stiff-jointed by prolonged halts, stupefied by noise and delay, poisoned by smoke, we make out that our artillery is becoming more and more active; the offensive seems to have changed places.

* * * * * *

Halt!  A fire of intense and incredible fury was threshing the parapets of the trench where we were halted at the moment:  “Fritz is going it strong; he’s afraid of an attack, he’s going dotty.  Ah, isn’t he letting fly!”

A heavy hail was pouring over us, hacking terribly at atmosphere and sky, scraping and skimming all the plain.

I looked through a loophole and saw a swift and strange vision.  In front of us, a dozen yards away at most, there were motionless forms outstretched side by side—­a row of mown-down soldiers—­and the countless projectiles that hurtled from all sides were riddling this rank of the dead!

The bullets that flayed the soil in straight streaks amid raised slender stems of cloud were perforating and ripping the bodies so rigidly close to the ground, breaking the stiffened limbs, plunging into the wan and vacant faces. bursting and bespattering the liquefied eyes; and even did that file of corpses stir and budge out of line under the avalanche.

We could hear the blunt sound of the dizzy copper points as they pierced cloth and flesh, the sound of a furious stroke with a knife, the harsh blow of a stick upon clothing.  Above us rushed jets of shrill whistling. with the declining and far more serious hum of ricochets.  And we bent our heads under the enormous flight of noises and voices.