matter over with him. He became at once intense, Latin, doctrinaire.

"How do you reconcile your theories of fraternity to what you have to
do?"

"I do not have to reconcile my theories to my office; I am furthering my
theories."

"How so?"

"By combating the Boches. Without them we might have realized our idea
of universal peace and fraternity. Voilà l'ennemi! The race is a
poisonous race, serpents, massacreurs! I wish I could smother as many of
them every day as I did yesterday."

During my service I did not meet another soldier whose hatred of the
Germans was comparable to that of this advocate of universal love.

I left the trenches just at dusk. Above the dreadful depression in No
Man's Land shone a bronzy sky against which the trees raised their
haggard silhouettes. There was hardly a sound in the whole length of The
Wood. A mist came up making haloes round the rising winter stars.




Chapter VI

The Germans Attack