"There are--very beautiful pages--in his--military life."

He meant: "II y a de tres belles pages dans sa carriere militaire."

Which is subtly not quite the same thing.

As we left the farm-house to regain the communication trench there
was a fierce, loud noise like this: ZZZZZ ssss ZZZZ sss ZZZZ. And
then an explosion. The observer in the captive balloon had noticed
unaccustomed activity in our village, and the consequences were
coming. We saw yellow smoke rising just beyond the wall of the
farmyard, about two hundred yards away. We received instructions
to hurry to the trench. We had not gone fifty yards in the trench
when there was another celestial confusion of S's and Z's. Imitating
the officers, we bent low in the trench. The explosion followed.

"One, two, three, four, five," said a Captain. "One should not rise till
one has counted five, because all the bits have not fallen. If it is a
big shell, count ten."

We tiptoed and glanced over the edge of the trench. Yellow smoke
was rising at a distance of about three lawn-tennis courts.

"With some of their big shells," said the Captain, "you can hear
nothing until it is too late, for the reason that the shell travels more
quickly than the sound of it. The sounds reach your ears in inverse
order--if you are alive."

A moment later a third shell dropped in the same plot of ground.