cried "Kamerad", "Bon Francais", even "Vive la France".
We advanced and lay down in columns by twos behind the second crest.
Meanwhile, bridges had been thrown across trenches and `boyaux',
and the artillery, leaving the emplacements where they had been
anchored a whole year, came across and took position in the open,
a magnificent spectacle. Squadrons of cavalry came up.
Suddenly the long, unpicturesque `guerre de tranchees' was at an end,
and the field really presented the aspect of the familiar battle pictures, --
the battalions in manoeuvre, the officers, superbly indifferent to danger,
galloping about on their chargers. But now the German guns, moved back,
began to get our range, and the shells to burst over and around
batteries and troops, many with admirable precision. Here my best comrade
was struck down by shrapnel at my side, -- painfully but not mortally wounded.

I often envied him after that. For now our advanced troops
were in contact with the German second-line defenses,
and these proved to be of a character so formidable
that all further advance without a preliminary artillery preparation
was out of the question. And our role, that of troops in reserve,
was to lie passive in an open field under a shell fire that every hour
became more terrific, while aeroplanes and captive balloons,
to which we were entirely exposed, regulated the fire.

That night we spent in the rain. With portable picks and shovels
each man dug himself in as well as possible. The next day
our concentrated artillery again began the bombardment,
and again the fusillade announced the entrance of the infantry into action.
But this time only the wounded appeared coming back, no prisoners.
I went out and gave water to one of these, eager to get news.
It was a young soldier, wounded in the hand. His face and voice