on a slant just over one's head to break in the enemy's trenches
seventy-five feet away. A swift rafale of some fifty "seventy-five"
shells passed whistling like the great wind of the Apocalypse, which is
to blow when the firmament collapses. Looking through the rifle slit,
after the rafale was over, I could see puffs of smoke apparently rising
out of the carpet of dead leaves. The nervous man, the other sentry,
held up his finger for us not to make the slightest noise and
whispered,--

"I heard somebody yell."

"Where?"

"Over there by that stump."

We strained our ears to catch a sound, but heard nothing.

"I heard the yell plainly," replied the sentry.

The news seemed to give some satisfaction. At any rate, the Germans
stopped their trench shells. The quiet hush of late afternoon was at
hand. Soon the cook came down the trench with kettles of hot soup.

Five months have passed since I last saw the inhabitants of this abri,
the tenants of the "Ritz-Marmite." How many are still alive? What has
happened to this fine, brave crowd of Frenchmen, gentlemen all, bons
camarades? I have seen them on guard in a heavy winter snowstorm, when
the enemy was throwing grenades which, exploding, blew purplish-black
smudges on the snow; I have seen them so bemired in mud and slop that
they looked like effigies of brownish earth; I have watched them wading