He turns towards me. The joy which fills him is plainly legible in his face. He laughs exuberantly:
"I should say they are going well. The Germans are giving way--deserting their positions like rats a sinking ship."
He laughs once more. "Listen to our 75's! They are making them dance like madmen! That is the way to carry on, what? They are being kicked in the sterns now, the swine!"
A staff captain on foot is watching the delighted gunners. He laughs also and repeats several times in a loud voice: "Good! Very good!"
I approach him and in a few words inform him of what was befalling half an hour ago over towards Vauxmarie on the Erize road. I repeat to him my wounded colonel's words, indicate the course I have followed, express my joy at having finally reached my destination, and add:
"I should, however, like to see Colonel G----, as I have been sent to him."
The Captain pauses before he replies kindly:
"You go and get some rest now. The --th are no longer needed. Nor will you be wanted for a little while. You have done well."
Then he informs me that my regiment has been withdrawn from the firing line and is being re-established a little to the rear. On his map he indicates the point of assembly and afterwards shakes me warmly by the hand.
"_Au revoir_, young man," he says. "Sleep well, eat well, keep yourself fit. You will want all your strength to keep fast on the heels of the Boches."
"Then, Captain, we have won a great victory?"
"I do not know ... not yet. But truly it will be so if all our rascals have progressed since Sunday as these have."
A surge of joy sweeps through me--a curious warmth, sweet, fervent and strong. Oh, that this may be true, that it may be true! The nervous tension under which I have laboured for hours past breaks suddenly. I feel strangely small and weak, and am obsessed by an insane desire to cry without constraint.
In the background, the 75's aligned along the edge of the wood continue joyously their triumphant salvoes. But the rattle they make now sounds queerly afar off, as though my head had been enveloped in a thick hood of wadding. Beneath my feet the soil, strewn with wet pine-needles, becomes elastic, enabling me to walk without effort. And so I leave the Captain, walking slowly, already forgetful of my recent travails, blind to the things about me.