We take our hands from our ears. The cries are silenced. Only a long-drawn, dying sigh still hangs on the air.

Then only again the rockets, the singing of the shells and the stars there⁠—most strange.

Detering walks up and down cursing: “Like to know what harm they’ve done.” He returns to it once again. His voice is agitated, it sounds almost dignified as he says: “I tell you it is the vilest baseness to use horses in the war.”

We go back. It is time we returned to the lorries. The sky has become brighter. Three o’clock in the morning. The breeze is fresh and cool, the pale hour makes our faces look grey.

We trudge onward in single file through the trenches and shell-holes and come again to the zone of mist. Katczinsky is restive, that’s a bad sign.

“What’s up, Kat?” says Kropp.

“I wish I were back home.” Home⁠—he means the huts.