midnight
Only the desperately wounded could be helped . The dead must sleep beneath the stars . The low , pitiful cries for water guided the ambulance corps as they stumbled over the heaps of those past help . The clouds drew a veil over the stars at midnight and it began to pour down rain before day . The sleeping , worn men woke with muttered oaths and stood against the trees or squatted against their trunks seeking shelter from the flood . As the mists lifted , they looked with grim foreboding but still desperate courage to the heights . Every rampart was deserted .