Over the Top at Double-Quick
There had been heavy artillery fire through the night, increasing in intensity as the hour of the morning appointed for the attack approached. The Germans, informed by their airmen of an unusual commotion in the enemy first line, began shelling that point, and the uproar was terrific when the signal was given for the Legion to go over the top. Says Morlae:
“I felt my jaws clenching, and the man next to me looked white. It was only for a second. Then every one of us rushed at the trench-wall, each and every man struggling to be the first out of the trench. In a moment we had clambered up and out. We slid over the parapet, wormed our way through gaps in the wire, formed in line, and, at the command, moved forward at march-step straight toward the German wire.”
As they moved forward at double-quick, men fell right and left under bursting shell, and the rain of bullets from the machine guns; but through all the appalling uproar Morlae could hear the clear, high voice of his captain shouting “En avant! Vive la France!”