"Did you ever see anything so awful as this?" said Alfred with a shudder, as they gazed on the great corpse-filled trench directly behind the crest of the ridge.
"There must have been an infantry charge here," said Ralph.
"Quite right," said the infantry officer. "They made the last stand here. It was really pitiful to see them, as our infantry came up the hill. The shells were exploding over them, not a hundred meters ahead of our foremost columns. They tried to fight, it must be said to their credit, but they were crazed by the terror of that fire."
"How far are we from our battery?" asked Ralph.
"I should say about three kilometers," said the lieutenant.
"Just to think of it," responded Alfred, "about two and a half miles distant, and see what happened here."
It would be merely a repetition of the same sights over and over to describe the scenes. Every sort of accoutrement, guns, swords, knapsacks, articles of food, clothing of every description, kitchen utensils, and at one place a poor dog, horribly mutilated, made up the scene and afforded a gruesome picture.
"What is this?" said Alfred, as he stopped and picked up an envelope. It was sealed, and had not, evidently, reached the one for whom it was intended.
"Turn it over to the searchers,—the ones who are now burying the dead," replied the lieutenant.
Alfred marched across the open and handed it to the officer. "I found this at the corner of the field," he explained.
The officer acknowledged the receipt with a bow, and held it up. "Lieutenant Johann Schroeder, 10th Infantry," the inscription read. "Have you the name there?" he asked, looking at the clerk.
The latter examined the index. "Yes; here it is; body in the tenth lateral, over to the left," so the letter was deposited in a huge sack carried by two assistants.
[Illustration: _The Deadly Shrapnel Shell_]
But there were other objects which had to be taken care of besides the bodies, as everything on the battlefield that has a value is gathered up. Metals are of great utility, leather can be used over again, and so on through the whole list. Repairs to roads were necessary and parties for this purpose were also in evidence, as it was their business to make this region habitable again for the army which must occupy it.