say he had flowers and vines planted
around it--drinking stolen champagne and sicking on his dogs of death.
He was in no danger. I cursed him in my heart, that blood-lord! The
shells rained on Verdun. The houses were riddled; the cathedral was
pierced in a dozen places; a hundred fires broke out. The old citadel
held good. The outer forts to the north and east were taken. Only the
last ring was left. We common soldiers did not know much about what was
happening. The big battle was beyond our horizon. But that General
Petain, he knew it all. Ah, that is a wise man, I can tell you! He sent
us to this place or that place where the defense was most needed. We
went gladly, without fear or holding back. We were resolute that those
mad dogs should not get through. '_They shall not pass!_' And they did
not pass!"

"Glorious!" cried the priest, drinking the story in. "And you, Pierre?
Where were you, what were you doing?"

"I was at Douaumont, that fort on the highest hill of all. The Germans
took it. It cost them ten thousand men. The ground around it was like a
wood-yard piled with logs. The big shell-holes were full of corpses.
There were a few of us that got away. Then our company was sent to hold
the third redoubt on the slope in front of Fort de Vaux. Perhaps you
have heard of that redoubt. That was a bitter job. But we held it many
days and nights. The Bodies pounded us from Douaumont and from the
village of Vaux. They sent wave after wave up the slope to drive us
out. But we stuck to it. That ravine of La Cail-lette was a boiling
caldron of men. It bubbled over with smoke and 'fire. Once, when their
second wave had broken just in front of us, we went out to hurry the
fragments down the hill. Then the guns from Douaumont and the village
of Vaux hammered us. Our men fell like nine-pins. Our lieutenant called
to us to turn back. Just then a shell tore away his right leg at the
knee. It hung by the skin and tendons. He was a brave lad. I could not
leave him to die there. So I hoisted him on my back. Three shots struck
me. They felt just like hard blows from a heavy fist. One of them made
my left arm powerless. I sank my teeth in the sleeve of my lieutenant's
coat as it hung over my shoulder. I must not let him fall off my back.
Somehow--God knows how--I gritted through to our redoubt. They took my
lieutenant from my shoulders. And then the light went out."

The priest leaned forward, his hands stretched out around the sol