coco wondered why they had to call on him; but, well, it had to be done, his duty, and he did it. with a man on either side of him he walked forward gingerly through a field where cows were grazing, nearer and nearer that horrible wood. he didn’t dare look at the ground; as he stumbled on his eyes never left that wood, so deathly still and mysterious. were there germans hidden in those trees? it was his duty to find out. bracques and lemaitre didn’t falter; so coco didn’t falter. he kept right on, nearer and nearer. his one idea was the importance of first seeing the enemy.
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then, suddenly, he heard a high, sharp whistling through the air, and the bullet spattered the earth viciously in front of him. a report cracked lazily out from the trees. another whistle, another, and the pattering grew nearer. coco dropped flat on the ground, and crawled cautiously up to a big rock and looked over the top, watching. still nothing was visible. the balls came faster now; but he crawled warily forward, dragging himself along the ground a little further.
lemaitre yelled, “come on back! we’ve drawn their fire—that’s enough,” and coco, with his heart thumping, was glad enough to return, running for all he was worth till he had reached his company. the men were fretful and restless with excitement, nervous, exclamatory. with a high, snoring drone, a german shell came driving through the air—a boom from the woods—then a sudden,29 terrifying crash as of thunder let loose as it burst in the rear. coco turned to see a volcano of black smoke and earth behind him. “lie down!” shouted the officers, and the men only too willingly dropped flat in the road. “at first,” said coco, “the men lay looking up into the air trying to see the shells—imagining that they really could! but when the things dropped closer, they began to dodge—as if one could escape them that way!” more shells came, and more, buzzing through the air in a screeching crescendo, bursting with appalling smashes nearer and nearer the line. then a whistle blew. forward! all along the front men jumped up, ran ahead, dropped, then rose and ran further in a long, irregular skirmish line, toward that vicious wood. as they advanced, the cannonading burst into a double, triple fury, and the harsh barking of machine guns began—and never once stopped. a hundred30 yards from the trees the whistle blew again to halt, and then the din grew unbearable, a crashing thunder with shells bursting here, there, in front, behind, in continual explosion. swept by that murderous tornado, they had to lie down and wait. and wait. and wait. and wait....
a scream of agony! coco saw on his left a geyser of débris—clods of earth, stones, dust, and smoke, and two men thrown bodily upward. another crash—nearer—he saw men’s heads and torn-off limbs flying past him. coco himself, when he rose on one knee to fire (for he was emptying his rifle madly into the wood now), was thrown down again and again by the concussion of the air. he saw sudden upheavals appear—dirt, maimed bodies, rocks, knapsacks, rifles, thrown every way—and a hole would be left big enough for half a dozen men to take refuge in. once he himself was buried up to31 his waist with flying dirt, his eyes were filled with dust and he could hardly breathe—the noxious fumes of the lyddite choked him. and always in his ears the incessant crash, bang, crash of the devastating, bursting shells till he couldn’t think. “lie down! lie down!” the officers shouted continually, but the men were now frenzied with the slaughter; they were on their knees, on their feet, shooting insanely into that secret, hellish wood, screaming curses.
and, all the time, where was the enemy? nobody knew. oh, if it had only come to a reckless charge against no matter what force, it would at least have been a chance for revenge; they would have gone forward like mad dogs. but instead, they had to wait—wait—wait to be killed! coco saw his friends wounded one by one. coco said: “each man when he was hit would throw his arms up over his head—always, it was that32 same gesture—and then he would fall, bleeding.”
