Vii

What of our comrades in the forward post? The fog of war but deepened with the day. We knew that in that troubled ocean lay Uncharted shoals, blind rocks, and treacherous coast. And what of yonder never-ending host Of wan, unwounded Portuguese? Ah, stay, Pale sergeant. Do you bleed? You came that way? What is the tidings? Is the front line lost? “Nothing is known of posts that lie before Laventie. At the cross-roads hellish fire Has cut them off who shouldered the first load.” Can they live through it? “They can not retire, Nor can you reinforce. I know no more But this. No living thing comes down that road.”

RASTATT, 30th April