They are waiting; a waiting that extends and seems eternal.  Now and then one or another starts a little when a bullet, fired from the other side, skims the forward embankment that shields us and plunges into the flabby flesh of the rear wall.

The end of the day is spreading a sublime but melancholy light on that strong unbroken mass of beings of whom some only will live to see the night.  It is raining—­there is always rain in my memories of all the tragedies of the great war.  The evening is making ready, along with a vague and chilling menace; it is about to set for men that snare that is as wide as the world.

* * * * * *

New orders are peddled from mouth to mouth.  Bombs strung on wire hoops are distributed—­“Let each man take two bombs!”

The major goes by.  He is restrained in his gestures, in undress, girded, undecorated.  We hear him say, “There’s something good, mes enfants, the Boches are clearing out.  You’ll get along all right, eh?”

News passes among us like a breeze.  “The Moroccans and the 21st Company are in front of us.  The attack is launched on our right.”

The corporals are summoned to the captain, and return with armsful of steel things.  Bertrand is fingering me; he hooks something on to a button of my greatcoat.  It is a kitchen knife.  “I’m putting this on to your coat,” he says.

“Me too!” says Pepin.

“No,” says Bertrand, “it’s forbidden to take volunteers for these things.”

“Be damned to you!” growls Pepin.

We wait, in the great rainy and shot-hammered space that has no other boundary than the distant and tremendous cannonade.  Bertrand has finished his distribution and returns.  Several soldiers have sat down, and some of them are yawning.

The cyclist Billette slips through in front of us, carrying an officer’s waterproof on his arm and obviously averting his face.  “Hullo, aren’t you going too?” Cocon cries to him.

“No, I’m not going,” says the other.  “I’m in the 17th.  The Fifth Battalion’s not attacking!”

“Ah, they’ve always got the luck, the Fifth.  They’ve never got to fight like we have!” Billette is already in the distance, and a few grimaces follow his disappearance.

A man arrives running, and speaks to Bertrand, and then Bertrand turns to us—­

“Up you go,” he says, “it’s our turn.”

All move at once.  We put our feet on the steps made by the sappers, raise ourselves, elbow to elbow, beyond the shelter of the trench, and climb on to the parapet.

* * * * * *

Bertrand is out on the sloping ground.  He covers us with a quick glance, and when we are all there he says, “Allons, forward!”

Our voices have a curious resonance.  The start has been made very quickly, unexpectedly almost, as in a dream.  There is no whistling sound in the air.  Among the vast uproar of the guns we discern very clearly this surprising silence of bullets around us—­