The young and patriotic student Demachy joins the French army in 1914 to defend his country. But he and his comrades soon experience the terrifying, endless trench war in Champagne, where more and more wooden crosses have to be erected for this cannon fodder. With a great pile of packets in front of him like a peddler's pack, the harassed quartermaster was calling out the post in the middle of a regular mob of soldiers, who were all plying their elbows and trampling on one another's feet. It was just at our door, between the communal washhouse -- so tiny that there would hardly have been room for three washerwomen under its sloping shelter roof -- and the notary's house, which wore a red scarf of virginia creeper crosswise on its front. We had clambered up on the stone seat and were listening attentively. "Maurice Duclou, first section." "Killed at Courcy," cried somebody. "Are you sure?" "Yes, his mates saw him fall in front of the church. . . . He'd caught a bullet. Now, . . well, I wasn't there myself." On the corner of the envelope the quartermaster wrote in pencil, "Killed." "Edouard Marquette." "He must be killed too," said a voice.