Chapter Eleven
Denis was sleeping soundly when the head nurse woke him up.
The Mole had disappeared from the men’s sleeping quarters. One of the poilus had seen the patient slip outside a little before midnight. He thought the man ‘was going for a leak’. Forgot about it, went back to sleep.
The Mole hadn’t returned.
When Denis left the barracks with a lantern, the Germans’ nightly shelling began. They were rather punctual: it started mostly around midnight. The 75’s produced a sound like a giant hammering on an anvil. Denis looked at the sky, saw it in flames – red, yellow, fiery white. He imagined that the Northern Lights were like that. The scene possessed a fascinating and yet horrendous grandeur.
He went to the latrines, just a few small barrels over which the men squatted – if th
