Gladiator by Philip Wylie — Read

At Blaisencourt it was spring again. The war was nearly a year old. Blaisencourt was now a street of houses' ghosts, of rubble and dirt, populated by soldiers. A little new grass sprouted peevishly here and there; an occasional house retained enough of its original shape to harbour an industry. Captain Crouan, his arm in a sling, was looking over a heap of debris with the aid of field glasses.

"I see him," he said, pointing to a place on the boiling field where an apparent lump of soil had detached itself.