The regiment defiles through the gloomy evening; our steps resound lugubriously and violate the surrounding desolation. In a short while, when the last section will have disappeared over the summit of the hill, the cold and silent night will descend again on the village, and peace shroud the poor, dead houses.
For the last time I turn and look back, glutting my eyes with this vision of desolation. Then I resume mechanically the onward march, sad to the point of tears, with the wan chillness of death in my heart.
Another road skirting the line which links Rembercourt with Vauxmarie and Beauzée. In the ditches, hunched up or stretched at full length, are human corpses. A single corpse is a rare spectacle. As a rule they are lying huddled together as if seeking to warm each other. The failing light reveals blue coats and red trousers; Frenchmen; more Frenchmen, in fact nothing but Frenchmen! Judge my enthusiasm on finding some Boches among them! I fall out several times to make sure that these really are Boches. The foe cannot have had the time to hide away that lot!
The night becomes black and corpses are no longer visible. But they are always there, at the bottom of the ditches, on the slopes at the very edge of the road. We realize their presence even in the dark. By shielding the eyes and peering hard, it is possible to see the eerie heaps which have lost all resemblance to that of which they are made. Beyond all, one can smell them; the peculiar, indescribable stench is heavy in the still evening air. The slowly moving breeze passing over those bodies fills our noses and throats with the odour. It makes us shudder instinctively, fearful lest that welter of putrefaction should be communicated from them to us.
Not a word in the ranks; nothing but the regular tramp, tramp, before and behind me; occasionally someone coughs, a little dryly, or a man spits. That is all. It must be cold, yet my head and hands are burning, and my will struggles to subdue an uncontrollable inclination to turn to my right where the cool waters of the Aire, flowing by the roadside, are betrayed by the stagnant pools under the trees.
An unexpected halt! The men bump their noses against the packs of the file in front. Confusion and much swearing. Then quick commands: