So much Georges told me; more he would not tell, at first, except that he thought the Germans stopped firing at about thirty meters distance, and began to sing the “Wacht am Rhein.”

Now I have always wanted to know the details of a typical bayonet fight—just how the issue is decided, why a Frenchman might not win here, and a German there, and so keep the victory uncertain. That, in fact, was one of the things I went to Toulouse to find out. But, to get any vivid picture of that bloody encounter was impossible.80 Georges simply shook his head. “It was too horrible,” he said.

At last he confessed reluctantly that when he saw the men ahead of him bayoneting the Germans, jabbing like madmen, he too gave a jump, and shut his eyes and stabbed at something he had seen in front of him, advancing with a long steel point—something that suddenly stopped singing, and squealed “like a wounded horse,” he said.

“I............