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
bespoke the emotion of the experience he had been through,
in a way that I will never forget. "Ah, les salauds!" he cried,
"They let us come right up to the barbed wire without firing. Then a hail
of grenades and balls. My comrade fell, shot through the leg, got up,
and the next moment had his head taken off by a grenade before my eyes."
"And the barbed wire, wasn't it cut down by the bombardment?"
"Not at all in front of us." I congratulated him on having
a 'blessure heureuse' and being well out of the affair.
But he thought only of his comrade and went on down the road toward Souain
nursing his mangled hand, with the stream of wounded
seeking their 'postes de secours'.

==

He then tells how, in spite of substantial gains, it gradually
"became more and more evident that the German second line of defence
presented obstacles too serious to attempt overcoming for the moment,
and we began going up at night to work at consolidating our advanced trenches
and turning them into a new permanent line." To this time, perhaps,
belongs the incident related by Rif Baer, an Egyptian,
who was his comrade and best friend in the regiment.
A piece of difficult trench work was allotted to the men,
to be finished in one night. "Each was given the limit,
that he was supposed to be able to complete in the time.
It happened that Rif Baer was ill, and, after working a while,
his strength gave out. Alan completed his own job and R. B.'s also,
and although he was quite exhausted by the extra labour,
his eyes glowed with happiness, and he said he had never done
anything in his life that gave him such entire satisfaction."

Summing up the results of the battle, Alan wrote (still in the same letter,
October 25): "It was a satisfaction at l