“Six o’clock—­the bombardment has just begun again.  The stretcher-bearer, L——­, has just been leaning a few moments—­worn out—­against the wall of my dug-out.  His good, honest face is hollow, his eyes, with their blue rims, seem starting out of his head. ’Mon Capitaine, I’m used up.  There are only three stretcher-bearers left.  The others are dead or wounded.  I haven’t eaten for three days, or drunk a drop of water.’  His frail body is only held together by a miracle of energy.  Talk of heroes—­here is a true one!

    “Eight o’clock.  We are relieved.

    “Eleven o’clock.  Message from the Colonel.  ’Owing to
    circumstances the 101st cannot be relieved.’

    “Merci!

    “What a disappointment for my poor fellows!  Lieutenant X——­ is
    lost in admiration of them.  I daresay—­but I have only
    thirty-nine of them left.”

Eighteen hours later.

“The order for relief has come.  We shall leave our dead behind us in the trench.  Then-comrades have carefully placed them out of the passage-way....  There they are—­poor sentinels, whom we leave behind us, in a line on the parados, in their blood-stained uniforms—­solemn and terrible guardians of this fragment of French soil, which still in death they seem to be holding against the enemy.”

But the enemy advances inexorably, and within the fort the dead and dying multiply.

“Captain Tabourot fought like a lion,” says another witness.  “He was taller than any of us.  He gave his orders briefly, encouraged us, and placed us.  Then he plunged his hand into the bag of bombs, and, leaning back, threw one with a full swing of the arm, aiming each time.  That excited us, and we did our best.”

But meanwhile the enemy is stealing up behind, between the trench and the fort.  Captain Tabourot is mortally hit, and is carried into the dressing-station within the fort.  Commandant Raynal, himself wounded, comes to see him.  “No word of consolation, no false hope.  The one knows that all is over; the other respects him too deeply to attempt a falsehood.”  A grasp of the hand—­a word from the Commandant:  “Well done, mon ami!” But the Captain is thinking of his men. “Mon Commandant—­if the Boches get through, it is not the fault of my company.  They did all they could.”  Then a last message to his wife.  And presently his name is carried through the dark by a carrier-pigeon down to the Headquarters below:  “The enemy surrounds us.  I report to you the bravery of Captain Tabourot, seriously wounded.  We are holding out.”  And a few hours later:  “Captain Tabourot of the 142nd has died gloriously.  Wound received in defending the north-eastern breach.  Demand for him the Legion of Honour.”

For five days the heroic defence goes on.  All communications are cut, the passages of the fort are choked with wounded and dying men, the water is giving out.  On the 4th, a wounded pigeon arrives at Headquarters.  It brings a message, imploring urgently for help.