At the beginning of a battle his legs became so weak that he would have fallen if he had not reflected that the entire army would pass over his body.  The whistling of the bullets gave him gooseflesh.

For months he had lived thus in terror and anguish.

His company was marching on Normandy, and one day he was sent to reconnoitre with a small detachment, simply to explore a portion of the territory and to return at once.  All seemed quiet in the country; nothing indicated an armed resistance.

But as the Prussians were quietly descending into a little valley traversed by deep ravines a sharp fusillade made them halt suddenly, killing twenty of their men, and a company of sharpshooters, suddenly emerging from a little wood as large as your hand, darted forward with bayonets at the end of their rifles.

Walter Schnaffs remained motionless at first, so surprised and bewildered that he did not even think of making his escape.  Then he was seized with a wild desire to run away, but he remembered at once that he ran like a tortoise compared with those thin Frenchmen, who came bounding along like a lot of goats.  Perceiving a large ditch full of brushwood covered with dead leaves about six paces in front of him, he sprang into it with both feet together, without stopping to think of its depth, just as one jumps from a bridge into the river.

He fell like an arrow through a thick layer of vines and thorny brambles that tore his face and hands and landed heavily in a sitting posture on a bed of stones.  Raising his eyes, he saw the sky through the hole he had made in falling through.  This aperture might betray him, and he crawled along carefully on hands and knees at the bottom of this ditch beneath the covering of interlacing branches, going as fast as he could and getting away from the scene of the skirmish.  Presently he stopped and sat down, crouched like a hare amid the tall dry grass.

He heard firing and cries and groans going on for some time.  Then the noise of fighting grew fainter and ceased.  All was quiet and silent.

Suddenly something stirred, beside him.  He was frightfully startled.  It was a little bird which had perched on a branch and was moving the dead leaves.  For almost an hour Walter Schnaffs’ heart beat loud and rapidly.

Night fell, filling the ravine with its shadows.  The soldier began to think.  What was he to do?  What was to become of him?  Should he rejoin the army?  But how?  By what road?  And he began over again the horrible life of anguish, of terror, of fatigue and suffering that he had led since the commencement of the war.  No!  He no longer had the courage!  He would not have the energy necessary to endure long marches and to face the dangers to which one was exposed at every moment.

But what should he do?  He could not stay in this ravine in concealment until the end of hostilities.  No, indeed!  If it were not for having to eat, this prospect would not have daunted him greatly.  But he had to eat, to eat every day.