go on talking, but I was being carried along a trench; they
had to lift me shoulder-high at every turn, and needed all
their energy. The Germans were shelling the lines. Several
fell fairly close, and they brought me down a long flight of
wooden steps into a dugout to wait until the worst of it
should be over. While waiting, they told me that I had
fallen just within the first-line trenches, at a spot where
a slight rise in ground hid me from sight of the enemy.
Otherwise, they might have had a bad time rescuing me. My
Spad was completely wrecked. It fell squarely into a trench,
the wings breaking the force of the fall. Before reaching
the ground, I turned, they said, and was making straight for
Germany. Fifty metres higher, and I would have come down in
No Man's Land.

For a long time we listened in silence to the subdued
_crr-ump_, _crr-ump_, of the shells. Sometimes showers of
earth pattered down the stairway, and we would hear the
high-pitched, droning _V-z-z-z_ of pieces of shell-casing as
they whizzed over the opening. One of them would say, "Not
far, that one"; or, "He's looking for some one, that
fellow," in a voice without a hint of emotion. Then, long
silences and other deep, earth-shaking rumbles.

They asked me, several times, if I was suffering, and
offered to go on to the _poste de secours_ if I wanted them
to. It was not heavy bombardment, but it would be safer to
wait for a little while. I told them that I was ready to go
on at any time, but not to hurry on my account; I was quite
comfortable.

The light glimmering down the stairway faded out and we were
in complete darkness. My brain was amazingly clear. It
registered every trifling impression. I wish it might always
be so intensely awake and active. There seemed to be four of
us in the dugout; the two _brancardiers_, and this second
self of mine, as curious as an eavesdropper at a keyhole,
listening intently to everything, and then turning to
whisper to me. The _brancardiers_ repeated the same comments
after every explosion. I thought: "They have been saying
this to each other for over three years. It has become
automatic. They will never be able to stop." I was feverish,
perhaps. If it was fever, it burned away any illusions I may
have had of mode