In the low room of the farm-house, with its dingy3 ceiling supported by oak beams, everyone was listening in silence. The Germans had lost Lizerne, but they were still holding out on this side of the water: Het-sas and Steenstraete. This evening, the Battalion4 was to occupy a transversal position, behind the telegraph pole opposite the bridge-head. The officers, in their dark uniforms, were standing5 up. In the dim light, their faces looked paler than usual. Their brass6 buttons and their stars shone. Through the curtains of the windows we could see the green landscape. Only those who had passed through the Lizerne hell could imagine the impression caused by the idea of returning to it.
All day long, the cannon7 had been roaring, making the window-panes rattle8. A few shells had come as far as our farm and killed a Grenadier. I had seen him near the hedge. He was stretched on the ground, his skull9 broken in, his white face framed by the blood from his forehead. Not far from him the dry, ploughed ground had been lacerated. A man, spade in hand, was looking for the head of the shell.
[Pg 328]
Our departure took place in silence. In the dim light, our men's red badges stood out vividly10. They went along in Indian file by a path in the wood. Their heavy tread could be heard as they crossed the footbridge. They marched on. The black farms, in the darkness, looked fantastic. There were hedges, rows of willow-trees, and desolate11 houses. The framework of only a few of these was still standing. Tiles cracked under our feet. Then there were paths on which our dark shadows fell side by side with the poplar trees. From time to time, we heard the clatter12 of a metal cup or a stealthy tread on the grass, like that of an animal going to the river at night. The moon shone very faintly and the stars looked like silver nails.
A few bullets sang round our ears. One of our fuses rushed into the darkness with a long, whistling sound. The white star stood out shining over the landscape and making it look elysian.
We now came to the trench13, with its heaps of sacks and up-turned earth. The traces of the struggle were still visible. Whole trees had been felled down on the parapet and were now lying, split open, their beams in the air. We penetrated14 into a new domain15, gliding16 along in the deep passages. From time to time a fuse came down with a greenish light and a graceful17, curving movement. It lighted up the tops of the trees and then searched the coppices. The shadows moved about again, stretched themselves out and then again all was darkness, the darkness to which our eyes had once more to get accustomed. We saw some soldiers wearing blue coats among our men. They were the brave fellows of the 135th. We could scarcely distinguish them from the others. They[Pg 329] hollowed out niches18 for themselves in the bank and crouched19 right down in these shelters, with their heads almost buried in the bank. They were there pêle-mêle, the dead and the living. Those who were sitting had their guns between their legs and were dozing20. We knocked against one of them in passing.
"What's the matter?" he exclaimed. "Are we going to the assault?" And he was up and ready at once.
The tall outlines of the trees now stood out against the sky. We had reached the entrance of the communication trench. Just as we were crossing the little bridge, something luminous21 burst over us and we suddenly heard the fizzling of a storm of bullets. We had only just time to lie down flat and wait till the hurricane was over. The darkness then returned. One by one, we entered the labyrinth22 of mud and of crumbling23 parapets. A prop24 had been made out of the ruins of a farm-house, which had been razed25 to the ground. These ruins did not look like any other ruins. Among the dark coppices, the scattered26 stones looked like white patches.
Our shelter was composed of a number of small wooden boxes, half covered with earth. In the bluish light of night, our outlines looked enormous. The moon lighted up, with a vague gleam, this devastated27 space, where the shattered, broken-branched trees added their cataleptic attitudes to the general desolation. Around the shelters, many of which were no more than tangled28 rubbish, about fifteen dead bodies were lying crushed on the ground. In the background was the Lizerne Mill. A jagged outline could be seen standing out against the sky.
Our men were wandering about trying to find a[Pg 330] place. At the bottom of a hole, the yellowish light of a candle could be seen, but it was soon extinguished. The ambulance men were burying the nearest of the dead. The Chaplain, who looked like a dark shadow in the moonlight, offered up a prayer. It was in this spot that we were to live for the next three days.
Our men huddled29 together on planks30 of wood with a slight layer of straw. Each one rolled himself up in his blanket and wedged himself into his corner. Everyone was silent. Through the open door could be seen the pale blue of the sky with two stars shining in it. In the distance, the big cannons31 were booming all the time. We tried to go on sleeping as long as possible, stiff though we were. The sun had already risen. The square of the sky which could be seen through the open door had gradually become a square of light. Death had not come to us during the night.
The sun was warm and we lay down on the bare ground behind the shelter, like so many lizards32. The kindly33 golden light chased away all bitterness and fatigue34. Under our feet, the bodies which had only just been buried gave a sensation of elasticity35 to the ground. The full daylight took away the phantasmagorial appearance of everything, and our shelters appeared in their true aspect, wretched boxes, made of pinewood half covered with tufts of grass.
The ground all around us was hollowed out in enormous craters36, several of which were quite close to us. A field all yellow with turnips38 in flower crowned the summit, the rest was nothing but brown earth.
A few men at work passed along by the hedge. One by one they ran along, bending nearly double. They passed near to us, making straight for the top of[Pg 331] the hill. Little clouds of dust, made by bullets, kept rising at their feet. Their coats could be seen mingling39 with the yellowish-green of the turnip37 field. They then disappeared among the flowers.
Towards two o'clock the cannonading commenced. The seventy-fives thundered without ceasing. Our seven-fives accompanied them. Very soon the Germans began to do their part, and their tens exploded with a noise that rent the air. Next came the wild-beast yelling of the shrapnels rushing on to the batteries, the dull noise of the heavy block-trains, the whizzing of our own shells, which passed quite near to us and then went on rapidly to lacerate our enemies in their dens40. Then came the bell-like sound of the English howitzers, the fantastical dance of the seventy-five shells, striking their wild chords on the trenches41, the yelling whistle of the heavy shells which soon began to fall on the plateau. They exploded near to us, with a heavy crashing din2. The rubbish whirled round in the air with harmonious42 songs. The bursting of certain German shrapnels was accompanied by a hubbub43 like the cries of wounded men. And then once more came the big shells. The sky was darkened by the clouds of black dust which rose up in the air like waterspouts.
The planks of wood were riddled44 with fragments. The cannonading then diminished and finally ceased. What was going to happen next? We listened anxiously and then, suddenly, a machine-gun was to be heard. This meant the assault, and our hearts were full of anguish45. We looked out into the distance, straight in front of us, sure, however, that we should see nothing. Then, all at once, by the communication trench, a whole mass of wounded men arrived. They[Pg 332] were pale and panting and many of them drenched46 to the bones.
"Oh the wretches47, the wretches, they had us, Doctor! It was horrible. We had scarcely left the trench, when they mowed48 us down. Some of our men plunged49 into the water to save themselves, into that water over yonder, the stream, I don't know what you call it, and they have been drowned in that rot. Others who were wounded and were trying to get back into our lines were finished off by them, finished off, Doctor, by their machine-guns, men who were dragging themselves along on the ground."
The machine-gun was silent now. More and more wounded arrived, in little groups, pursued by the shooting. One of them had his face red with blood. There was blood and mud everywhere, and on all sides moans of pain. One poor fellow was sitting in a hole, with bullets in both feet and his arm shattered. He was holding his arm as one holds a baby, rocking it and uttering incomprehensible things, as he shook his head. There were about forty lying either at the back of the shelters or inside, pêle-mêle, amongst our men. They gradually became more calm and were quiet. Those who could go on farther started off one by one. The one who had been crying was now shivering in a corner. The darkness came on again gradually. The assault of the 135th had failed.
In the night, the dance began once more, and this time, through the chinks, we could see the red light of the explosions. Suddenly a shell made a breach50 over our heads.
"Is anyone hit?" we asked.
"No one," came the reply.
Another one came presently, and then others. We[Pg 333] heard them fall and the ground shook. We tried to go to sleep, but, with our hearts beating fast and our limbs cramped51, sleep would not come. More shells arrived. We thought they were exploding farther away, but no, that one was nearer. Then another farther away and, after this, silence again. We were tired of hoping against hope and we all pulled our blankets up and covered our faces.
The dawn was slow in coming. There were no more illusions possible for us. As long as the Germans were on this side of the water, life would be unbearable52 for us. And yet it was a beautiful day and a bird was singing on the broken branch of a tree. It was so good to be alive!
Thanks to the shells round here, the graves were ready made. We put the Grenadiers and French who were in the neighborhood into them. Our domain was very limited, and was skirted on every side by death. Presently breakfast was served, bread and jam, cold coffee in aluminium53 goblets54. These were the usual rations55, for we had to live in spite of everything. We yawned as we looked out and saw the thin brown lines of the German trenches in front of us.
In the afternoon, the a?roplanes were flying about over our heads in the blue sky, and presently the azure56 road was riddled with white spots. We were all watching them, but we soon had to go in and take shelter, as the splinters fell about with a whirring sound. One of our machines then appeared in pursuit of the others and this was intensely exciting for us. It rushed along like a bird of prey57, but unfortunately its victim had time to escape ... and so the time passed.
Once more the dance began, and the noise, this time,[Pg 334] was formidable and uninterrupted. Again the big shells tore up the ground near us, flinging into the air enormous clouds which hid the light from us. The rubbish fell down like rain, the ground trembled, and our huts shook. The next one came along with a terrible, hissing58 sound, and then another and another. We wondered whether the cannon would never cease again. For days now, we had heard it like this. At last there was silence once more. We could scarcely believe it at first. The backs of our necks ached and our ears were on the alert. What was the meaning of this wonderful silence? We could not hear the machine-gun. Well, then ... our assault must have succeeded.... We could not believe this. It was too good to be true. In spite of everything, our breasts were swelling59 with joy and the men burst out singing the Marseillaise.
Oh, if we could only know what had happened! Presently a soldier came our way.
"What's the news?" cried out our men. He looked at us in a dazed way, holding his metal cup in his hand.
"News of the assault?" he said. "It's been put off."
It was night and, on the Steenstraete side, there was a house in flames, throwing huge red lights on the sky. The fuses, with their ideal colouring, rose silently again in the air with their gentle curves. Our long serpents, with their golden spangles, rushed out into the darkness, letting a star of pale light fall in the air.
By gliding along, from shell hole to shell hole, it was possible to get as far as the mill. In the communi[Pg 335]cation trench, a dark, crushed, charred60 body had sunk down. Farther on, there were paving stones that had been torn up and rubbish, from all sides, that had accumulated. The hillock was torn open and the opening led out to the light night. The shadows here were motionless and the very things looked dead. It was absolute solitude61, a terrible picture of war, the strange domain of fear.
Of the five shelters, only one was intact. Two of them were nothing but heaps of planks. The ear was now accustomed to all the noises; it had learnt to know when danger was near and every sound had its own special significance in our minds. Every afternoon the action began again, it was always the same thing. Weariness made our heads and limbs seem heavy. Life was passing by in this way now. From time to time, delegates went to the different companies, bending down almost double, tricking danger.
In the shelters, a fool was telling extraordinary tales, tales of riotous62 life and of quarrels. Everyone laughed. His face was all awry63, but he would not upon any account laugh himself. There was a red-haired young man there, too, with long hair. He was pale and sickly. He was listening anxiously to all the sounds outside. Why in the world did he think so much of his life. He began arguing when it was his turn to start and then rushed out into the danger, as though his fate were a thing of great importance. We are all of us like that.
Some of the men were asleep, others were eating, and a fierce-looking Grenadier was polishing the head of a shell.
As a matter of fact, we could really have lived there[Pg 336] a long time, it was only a question of habit and custom.
To our right, the big green shells kept bursting fairly regularly on a group of houses. Farther on, shell-mines kept falling. No one paid any attention to these now. They came at their own sweet will on our side. Suddenly, a long, dark mass was to be seen rushing along and turning round and round above a roof. Was it a man that had been flung into the air? No, it was a shell that had not exploded and which had bounded again on to the footpath64. The darkness came over us for the third time. It slowly changed the luminous tints65 of the sky into pastel-like grey harmonies, which grew slowly fainter and ended in darkness.
Suddenly, red fuses were flung into the air. An attack had begun. In a few seconds, all the cannons were thundering together. The German shrapnels exploded four at a time in a luminous mass of absinthe green, in the centre of which were red balls. They rent the air with a huge noise. The seventy-fives rushed out yelling. In the distance, their sudden flames were like gigantic will-o'-the-wisps. A machine-gun could now be heard, and then a second one, and a third. Some soldiers of the 418th passed along in close file, dressed in pale blue which mingled66 with the darkness. Their bayonets glittered in the green light of the fuses, and then again, with mad yells, the "big" shells appeared on the plateau, flinging into the air opaque67 clouds which gathered round us. Gun firing could be heard crackling all along the line. An immense brazier had been lighted at Lizerne. It grew bigger and bigger. And among the piles of dark night clouds, above Steenstraete in flames, a blood-red moon arose.
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1
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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2
din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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3
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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8
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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10
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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11
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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12
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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14
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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15
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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16
gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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18
niches
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| 壁龛( niche的名词复数 )； 合适的位置[工作等]； （产品的）商机； 生态位（一个生物所占据的生境的最小单位） | |
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19
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dozing
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| v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
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21
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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labyrinth
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| n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路 | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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prop
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| vt.支撑；n.支柱，支撑物；支持者，靠山 | |
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razed
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| v.彻底摧毁，将…夷为平地( raze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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27
devastated
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| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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28
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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cannons
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| n.加农炮，大炮，火炮( cannon的名词复数 ) | |
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lizards
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| n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 ) | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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elasticity
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| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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36
craters
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| n.火山口( crater的名词复数 )；弹坑等 | |
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turnip
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| n.萝卜，芜菁 | |
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turnips
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| 芜青( turnip的名词复数 )； 芜菁块根； 芜菁甘蓝块根； 怀表 | |
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39
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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40
dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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41
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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42
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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43
hubbub
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| n.嘈杂；骚乱 | |
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44
riddled
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| adj.布满的；充斥的；泛滥的v.解谜，出谜题(riddle的过去分词形式) | |
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45
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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46
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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47
wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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48
mowed
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| v.刈，割( mow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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50
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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51
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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52
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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53
aluminium
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| n.铝 (=aluminum) | |
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54
goblets
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| n.高脚酒杯( goblet的名词复数 ) | |
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55
rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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56
azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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57
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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58
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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59
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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60
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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61
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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62
riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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63
awry
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| adj.扭曲的，错的 | |
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64
footpath
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| n.小路，人行道 | |
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65
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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66
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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67
opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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