We grab and hang on to each other, jostling as if we were fighting.
The rest at last reach the top of the rise; and just at that moment the lieutenant cries in a clear and heartrending voice: "Good-by, my lads!" We see him fall, and he is carried away by the survivors around him.
From the summit we go a few steps down the other side, and lie on the ground in silence.

Some one asks, "The lieutenant ?" "He's dead." "Ah," says the soldier, "and how he said good-by to us!" We breathe a little now.

We do not think any more unless it be that we are at last saved, at last lying down.
Some engineers fire star-shells, to reconnoiter the state of things in the ground we have evacuated.

Some have the curiosity to risk a glance over it.

On the top of the first hill--where our guns were--the big dazzling plummets show a line of bustling excitement.