the gray ascent it is a
little clearer than a while ago: they do not fire on us. If they fired
on us, we should be killed. We climb in flagging jumps, in jerks,
pounded by the panting of the following waves that push us before them,
closely beset by their clattering, nor turning round to look again. We
hoist ourselves up the trembling flanks of the volcano that clamors up
yonder. Along with us are emptied batteries also climbing, and horses
and clouds of steam and all the horror of modern war. Each man pushes
this retreat on, and is pushed by it; and as our panting becomes one
long voice, we go up and up, baffled by our own weight which tries to
fall back, deformed by our knapsacks, bent and silent as beasts.

From the summit we see the trembling inundation, murmuring and
confused, filling the trenches we have just left, and seeming already
to overflow them. But our eyes and ears are violently monopolized by
the two batteries between which we are passing; they are firing into
the infinity of the attackers, and each shot plunges into life. Never
have I been so affected by the harrowing sight of artillery fire. The
tubes bark and scream in crashes that can hardly be borne; they go and
come on their brakes in starts of fantastic distinctness and violence.

In the hollows where the batteries lie hid, in the middle of a
fan-shaped phosphorescence, we see the silhouettes of the gunners as
they thrust in the shells. Every time they maneuver the breeches,
their chests and arms are scorched by a tawny reflection. They are
like the implacable workers of a blast furnace; the breeches are
reddened by the heat of the explosions, the steel of the guns is on
fire in the evening.

For some minutes now they have fired more slowly--as if they were
becoming exhausted. A few far-apart shots--the batteries fire no more;
and now that the salvos are extinguished, we see the fire in the steel
go out.

In the abysmal silence we hear a gunner groan:--

"There's no more shell."

The shadow of twilight resumes its place in the sky--henceforward
empty. It grows cold. There is a mysterious and terrible mourning.
Around me, springing from the obscurity, are groans and gasps for
breath, loaded backs which disappear, stupefied eyes, and the gestures
of men who wipe the sweat from their foreheads. The order to retire is
repeated, in a tone that grips us--one would call it a cry of distress.
There is a confused and dejected tramplin