greatcoats are like lumps of wood, jumping about on the yellow crust
that reaches to their knees. Their faces are drawn and blackened;
dust and dirt have wrinkled them anew; their eyes are big and
fevered. And from these soldiers whom the depths of horror have
given back there rises a deafening din. They talk all at once, and
loudly; they gesticulate, they laugh and sing. You would think, to
see them, that it was a holiday crowd pouring over the road!

These are the second section and its big sub-lieutenant, whose
greatcoat is tightened and strapped around a body as stiff as a
rolled umbrella. I elbow my way along the marching crowd as far as
Marchal's squad, the most sorely tried of all. Out of eleven
comrades that they were, and had been without a break for a year and
a half, there were three men only with Corporal Marchal.

He sees me--with a glad exclamation and a broad smile. He lets go
his rifle-sling and offers me his hands, from one of which hangs his
trench stick--"Eh, vieux frere, still going strong? What's
become of you lately?"

I turn my head away and say, almost under my breath, "So, old chap,
it's happened badly."

His smile dies at once, and he is serious: "Eh, oui, old man; it
can't be helped; it was awful this time. Barbier is killed."

"They told us--Barbier!"

"Saturday night it was, at eleven o'clock. He had the top of his
back taken away by a shell," says Marchal, "cut off like a razor.