Front matter (continued 3)

"Bravo, rat-tatou." (A ratatouille is a stew of meat and vegetables.)

The hours pass. Impossible to advance. The fusillade, intense to right and left, slackens in front. Some of the men fall asleep on the spot. Night comes on. The cannonade and the firing almost cease. A cold, clear night and a starry sky. Profound calm. Seven o'clock.

The lieutenant orders our half-section back into the trench. The 24th has been dealt with severely—thirty dead and twenty wounded.

Shall we be relieved to-night? It is sufficiently dark for us to move about behind the trenches and remove the numbness from our limbs.

"Look out, Jouin is there," says Parvis.

It is usual to continue to call the dead by their names.

We form a circle round the body, touch one another on the shoulder and shake hands. We are the more conscious of the value of life from the fact that its tenure in our own bodies is so uncertain.

Mignard, a cover flung over his shattered head, still lies at the bottom of the trench. We shall have to raise him and place him by Jouin's side in the field of beetroots, unless we wish to spend the night with him. He is very heavy. The cold touch of his lifeless hands sends a thrill through my whole body.

But very soon sleep alone occupies our thoughts. The lieutenant remains awake. He looks over the parapet without once removing his eyes. Reymond rolls himself in his cover; I do the same. We throw over our bodies the big poncho, and, close pressed to each other, sleep at the bottom of the trench.

Friday, 13th November.

About two in the morning some one gives me a shake—

"Come along; it's your turn to keep watch over there among the beetroots."

There is a smile on the lieutenant's face as he adds in grumbling accents—

"I never heard any one snore as you do!"

I take up my post, lying flat on the ground, at a distance of fifty yards in front of the trench. I do all I can think of to keep awake. There is a dense mist over the land. After a couple of hours I am relieved. It is raining, of course!

The daybreak is dull and unpleasant. Are we to attack again? No. Yesterday we only had to create a diversion, so the lieutenant explains, and compel the Germans to direct their fire upon our sector. This artillery fire has been sprinkling the plain ever since eight o'clock. The shells shriek overhead and burst away to our left. We remark, jokingly—

"That's nothing; the 21st will catch it all."

During the night a section of the 23rd company, remaining in reserve, has linked up our trench, by means of a branch, with the rear trenches. We are delighted at the idea that we shall no longer have to crawl over exposed country.

The day seems as though it would never end, and nothing happens. Reymond and I, tired out, and seated side by side in a sort of sofa hollowed out in the trench wall, feel not the slightest inclination even to speak. At night the 23rd replaces us and the 24th retires to the grotto.

On reaching it, after forty minutes in the branches, the grotto seems more than ever a paradise to us all.

Each man has his own tale to tell.

Sergeant Moricet shows his coat with a hole right in the middle of the breast; his pocket-book has stopped the bullet, though all the papers in it are cut in pieces.

Corporal Chevalier has been bleeding at the nose ever since the previous evening. At the moment of attack, as he was crawling along, a huge beetroot, hurled forward by a ball, struck him full on the nose. He thought he had swallowed a 210. He now spends all his time in padding his swollen organ.

In the stone bedroom the men are very kind and attentive to one another—

"I hope I'm not in your way, old fellow? Have you enough room to stretch yourself?"

"Yes, thanks. Oh! I beg your pardon if I kicked you."

Each man fusses over the other as though to thank him for not being killed.

The men lie on the ground against their haversacks, their rifles supported against the wall, with cans and all accoutrements hooked on to the guard. The first squadron is complete. Corporal Matois is a big, bearded peasant, from the neighbourhood of Langres, a roughly built countryman. He is really the best character I know.

Charensac, squatting in a corner, is stuffing into his haversack a flannel belt some one has given him. He has already stored away seven shirts, which he intends to carry home with him after the war.

Everything offered him he takes. "Look here, Charensac, would you like this?" Without looking, he shouts out from the other end of the room: "Thanks, old fellow!" It may be what remains at the bottom of a sardine tin, a piece of sausage, chocolate, cigars, a pair of socks, nothing comes amiss. Charensac's stomach is a veritable pit. His haversack, another pit, weighs over sixty-five pounds. Huge shoulders and the flanks of a bull are needed to carry it. He has also two enormous musettes, which form baskets projecting on either side. His comrades frequently regard him as a mule. They assure him that he will kill himself. Nothing, however, can rob him of his imperturbable good humour. The only time his face assumes an expression of seriousness is when he affirms: "You should never throw anything away."

Yes, Charensac is quite unique. Never have I seen any one else live through trench warfare with such constant joviality. The men, speaking generally, in spite of their wonderful morale, do not look upon war as a sort of holiday.

Extremely tall and well built, strong as a Turk, a full-moon face enlivened with cunning little eyes, a voice of thunder, a Gargantuan appetite, an ant's rapacity and a dormouse's capacity for sleep, such is Charensac, the gas-fitter from Auvergne. For a packet of canteen tobacco, worth exactly three farthings, you may obtain from him the most extraordinary things, for instance, silence for a space of twenty-four hours. Brawling and uneducated as he is, however, he can count his change quite well, and it is impossible to cheat him. We often say to him: "Charensac, you are nothing but matter!" "Charensac, you make a god of your stomach!" "Charensac, you have every possible vice, you are a disgrace to the first squadron!"

His optimism cannot be shaken by such insults, for he sees in them our inexhaustible goodness of heart.

Henriot coldly looks on at Charensac's evolution. He is a Parisian printer, intelligent and well educated, indifferent to danger, a taciturn fellow, tall and solidly built, almost bald, with the face of a Socrates.

Mauventre, all nose and forehead, always wears a woollen cap, similar to those affected by chestnut sellers. The wretched fellow has a perpetual dread of shells and bullets. Never does the company muster without Mauventre remarking sadly—

"A projectile is bound to drop right in the middle of us."

Briban, a native of Dijon, has a parrot's profile on the body of a shepherd-spider. And finally, Pierrot, nicknamed "Piaf," a Paris drayman, possesses the classic physique of a Zouave.

Piaf and Briban are now our cooks. Briban is called the "Fireman," because, having had his head-gear removed by a bullet in September, after going for a whole week in a cotton cap, he at last found in a field a fireman's képi, of which he took immediate possession.

The first company also includes Verrier, Maxence, Varlet, Jacquard, Reymond and myself. A fine squadron.

Sergeant Chaboy enters.

"Have you room for me here?"

We shout out: "Vive Chaboy!" and welcome him affectionately, for he has manœuvred his half-section beneath the enemy's fire without losing a single man.

At nine o'clock the lieutenant calls for volunteers to pick up the dead. Varlet, Jacquard, and Charensac offer themselves; they are anxious to bring back two old chums with whom they served before war broke out. They return at midnight.

Saturday, 14th November.

Eight bodies are laid out here, in front of the grotto, with their uniforms all torn and muddy. We try to recognize them.

Around the bodies things follow their ordinary course: fatigue duty, men sweeping and digging the road. The cooks are busy about the fire. Ten men ordered to dig a grave at Bucy cemetery set off, shovel or pick on shoulder.

Belin runs up; he has not been able to get away from his company sooner. On finding us all alive, he lifts his hands in the air and can scarcely contain himself for joy. The 21st has only a few wounded.

We spend the day in relishing the pleasure of being alive; a sensation unknown to civilians.

The relief arrives—a battalion of Alpins—and we leave the trenches just as boys leave school on breaking-up day, with feelings of unpolluted joy, and also the thought that the return is in the dim distance and somewhat problematical.

The company is quartered at Acy-le-Haut, where it sojourned in October. At midnight we have to hoist ourselves into a loft by the aid of a ladder, two-thirds of whose rungs are missing. We sink softly into bundles of hay. For twenty-two days, with the exception of two rests of twenty-four hours each at Bucy, we have not left the trenches. Outside it is freezing hard.

CHAPTER IX

A LULL

Sunday, 15th November.

The feelings of utter exhaustion which come over us from time to time do not last long. You think yourself at the last gasp, and yet the following day you are as fresh as possible.

This morning we are taken in charge by Madame Gillot, who lodged us on the 9th October. We receive a warm welcome—

"What, you are all alive!"

Milliard, the postman, brings us over twenty parcels; we are admirably revictualled both in food and in warm clothing.

Monday, 16th November.

Reymond's birthday; he is thirty years of age. To celebrate the occasion, we organize a special lunch.

In the afternoon the lieutenant reviews each man's supplies of food: his haversack, spread open at his feet, must exhibit to the officer's vigilant eye two tins of corned beef, a dozen biscuits, two little bags containing sugar, coffee, and two tablets of condensed soup.

One of our men has neither biscuits nor corned beef. Questioning glance of the lieutenant. Evasive gesture of the man, who immediately stands at attention.

"Have you eaten your two tins of corned beef?"

A sign of assent.

"Your biscuits too, naturally?"

Another sign of assent.

"Ah! And why did you eat your tins of corned beef?"

"Mon lieutenant, one evening I was hungry...."

"Better and better! If the men begin to eat their reserve supplies whenever they are hungry, there will be no army left!"

That evening we laughingly relate the incident to Belin. Being an old soldier, he cannot get over it.

"Eat one's reserve supplies without orders! If he had been in the Foreign Legion he would have received eight days' prison for every biscuit missing. The lieutenant was right.... You have your dozen biscuits and two tins, at all events?"

"Of course, don't make such a fuss."

Belin makes a friendly review to assure himself of the fact.

Thin and sharp-featured, his capote well brushed and stretched, and the lower part of his trousers rolled inside his leggings, Belin exhibits subtle poisings of his body and impressive movements of his arm as he points to the sky. He knows how to shout out the "Hô Mohâmed!" the rallying cry intended to reach the ears of the comrade who has gone astray.

The ways and manners of civilians in warfare baffle him considerably. Roberty would say to him—

"Strange how much you lack understanding of Parisian humour and fun."

Belin, however, is a brave fellow, he has travelled, read, and fought a great deal. Though we pay him a certain deference, we are very fond of him.

Tuesday, 17th November.

As we are resting we become somewhat like civilians, and await the news with an anxiety unknown at the front, where one's horizon is limited to a field of beetroots.

The papers bring fresh details of the frightful battles of the Yser. The German offensive seems to have been broken. What will they attempt now?

This morning our attack of the 12th is honoured by the following communiqué: "We have made slight progress between Crouy and Vregny." Multum in parvo. Here's something to make us proud, but more especially something to make us modest and patient when we think of what those men are going through who are fighting in the North, living and dying in the thick of it all. It is they who are the real heroes.

From the letters we receive it is manifest that we also are regarded as heroes; people will insist on considering as a gigantic struggle our life as navvies and troglodytes! How absurd! Such lavish use should not be made of these fine expressions, so well deserved by those who have fought at Ypres, Nieuport, and Dixmude.

Here, too, we may deserve them some day. Meanwhile, let us do a little gardening.

Wednesday, 18th November.

We leave Acy to return to the trenches. Madame Gillot stands lamenting at her door.

"Ah! my poor men, I wonder if I shall ever see you again?"

"Very good of you to think of us, Madame Gillot."

The company occupies a new sector in the front line. No dug-outs here, the ground is too hard to do anything. We take sentry duty in the middle of the beetroots, in a sort of trough dug in the ground, twenty yards in front of the trench. It is snowing.

Thursday, 19th November.

At dawn hoar-frost covers the whole field. A little beyond the barbed wire are three small mounds, covered with snow: the bodies of those of the 24th who died. It is freezing hard, so we stamp our feet on the ground. Red faces emerge from passe-montagnes. I carefully press my nose between my woollen-gloved fingers; the sensation of feeling the warmth come gently back is delicious. A few cannon shots from time to time, as though to explain our presence here.

The day is spent in walking as quickly as possible between the two frozen walls of the trench. When I cross Reymond, each of us, before turning round, gravely salutes the other and says: "Buon di! Buon di!" like the grotesque doctors in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac.

The company, returning to the grotto to sleep, brings back the bodies of eight men, killed on the 12th and picked up between the lines, thanks to the heroism of an auxiliary doctor named Wallon.

Yesterday I received a sleeping-bag made of a kind of soft oil-cloth, lined with flannel: a notable event in a soldier's life. This evening, wrapped in my cover, I enter my sleeping-bag and pull down the edges over my head.

Friday, 20th November.

The trees are now entirely stripped of leaves. The country looks cold and dismal.

The eight bodies are laid out in a line in front of the grotto: the second time we have had such a sight before our eyes. This one is Mallet, who was on guard with us in the train which brought us to the depot. He was a little stout fellow, quiet and taciturn, with a brown beard. War was not at all his vocation, and he would frequently remark with a sigh: "I am certain I shall be killed."

Ill-omened words which should never be spoken.

Mallet wore a medallion on his breast.... The night before the attack he had said quietly to a friend—

"If I die, send this medallion to my wife."

The friend now tenderly unclasps it from his capote. As this latter is being removed from the body, the cloth, covered with frozen mud, is as stiff as cardboard.

After a prolonged examination we recognize Corporal Lion, whose good-natured face has been rendered unrecognizable by a wound. He is another who, speaking of his young wife and children and his past happiness, had imprudently said: "It's all over with me.... I shall never come back!..." There is some difficulty in taking from his shrivelled finger the wedding-ring, the gold of which still shines a little beneath the enveloping mud.

Our nerves are now too hardened for such a sight to affect them. Emotion has become calm and considerate, and each of us thinks—

"Well, if I were in his place, would there be around my body nothing but this cold and gloom of winter?"

The sergeant summons me along with Reymond and Maxence to go on cemetery duty—

"Take a shovel or a pick and go down to Bucy."

In the old cemetery surrounding the church, a lieutenant indicates the spot where we must dig a grave for eight men.

We set to work.

Shortly afterwards a tumbrel brings along the bodies. Two attendants lay them out in a line. Meanwhile, the hole is growing larger. Our shovels encounter old rust-coloured bones, and even an entire skull, which is deposited on the edge of the grave.

At eleven o'clock the work is finished; we return to the grotto for lunch. Above Bucy a duel is being fought between a French and a German aeroplane; the rapid sharp cracks of a mitrailleuse reach our ears. Suddenly a jet of flame streams from the German machine, which makes straight for the north, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake. It is hit; the French machine, after circling around, follows after.

On reaching the grotto we learn that the enemy bird fell within our lines on the Maubeuge road. The pilot has succeeded in making good his escape, but our 75's have opened fire upon the machine, which is still burning.

At five in the evening the section is guarding the telephone at Pont-Rouge, on the Bucy road. The light infantry have constructed a hut, which will just hold ten men. Three very comfortable bedsteads, and in one corner a rustic-looking chimney-place, where a magnificent fire sheds its genial warmth. Here we come to roast ourselves in turn, in the intervals of sentry duty.

The cold is bitter; the mud of the beaten track is frozen hard. The roads themselves bristle with clods of frozen earth.

The Pont-Rouge road, which leads direct to the enemy, who is entrenched three hundred yards away, is blocked by a rampart of sand-bags. These bags are covered with blood. It was here that the 5th Battalion, on the 12th of this month, deposited their wounded and dead. A few broken rifles heaped up along the copse, pêle-mêle with various military equipment.

Balls whistle in our ears; sometimes they ricochet on the frozen ground and glance off with a singing sound.

Saturday, 21st November.

To-night the thermometer is 13° Centigrade below zero. I have slept very well, in the open air, rolled in canvas wrappings at the bottom of the trench. On waking I see Jacquard's hirsute beard, kind innocent eyes and red nose. The rest of his face is swathed in chestnut-coloured wool. Quick, my bottle and a good mouthful of brandy. Just in time, for the cold has surprised us during the night and frozen me to the very bones. I pick up my can, which I had laid aside during sleep: it is full of icicles. The coffee is frozen.

The cold has brought out a number of fantastic costumes. One of my comrades looks like a bashi-bazouk, another like a chorus singer in Boris Godounow. To write a letter I put on great red woollen gloves, a grey muffler, and a blue passe-montagne. I also wear trousers of green velvet; the effect being quite good.

All the same, it must not be imagined that we look disguised. At muster, the blue uniform reappears and the usual military aspect of things; we remain soldiers beneath our fantastic accoutrement, having all become so without an effort of will. Adaptation to the drudgery and difficulties of the profession comes about insensibly.

Luckily, the wind is not blowing in the direction of the trench; but the enemy's bullets pour in a raking fire. Maxence, who is extremely tall and too careless to bend down, just misses being killed on two occasions. His calm is most exasperating. We shriek at him—

"Sale rosse! I suppose you'll be happy when you've got a bullet through your head. And you think it will be a joke for us to carry you away dead, a giant like you?"

"He weighs at least a hundred and eighty pounds," growls Jacquard, who is a dwarf in comparison.

After all, frost is better than rain and mud.

Sunday, 22nd November.

The squadron's new quarters at Bucy are not very luxurious: an abandoned building, considerably broken up, windows smashed, doors and casements torn away. Along a narrow flight of stairs, we gain access to two square rooms.

Fortunately the people next door are willing to lodge us. Inside the wide street-door is a little yard; to the right, a rabbit-hutch which is empty; to the left, a ground-floor room with cellar and loft. Doubtless the house is protected from enfilade firing, for it has remained standing, though a 77 has made a slight breach in it, above a sign-post on which we read: "Achain, mattress-maker."

We enter, meeting with a cordial reception.

"It's a poor place," says the woman, whose round face is framed in a black shawl, "but we will give you every attention."

Poor, indeed! Nothing of the kind. The windows are unbroken, the roof intact, the doors will shut, and there is a fire in the stove. In a small room a couple of beds and a mattress laid on the floor are to be placed at our disposal.

The owners of the house sleep in the cellar. The consequence is that we are masters for the time being, one of the advantages-perhaps the only one—of the bombardment.

Numbers of parcels arrive. Beneath the stupefied gaze of the Achains, we unpack tins of preserved food, which Jules arranges on a sideboard. Jules explains that we belong to the most refined and select classes of society. It is a mania of his to proclaim everywhere that we are persons of distinction. We make our appearance, tired to death and covered with mud, bundled up in mufflers, with shaggy cadaverous faces, carrying rifles, haversacks, pipes, mud, and making a horrible clatter. Our hosts, troubled by such an invasion, at first manifest a certain degree of reserve, but Jules speedily finds reassuring words; he exhorts us to mend our manners, and pays court to the ladies. A most valuable fellow, Jules!

He is a native of Franche-Comté. Evidently this district does not produce thin sorry-looking specimens of humanity. Jules possesses the frame and physique of a wrestler. His big shining face, flanked with enormous ears, is illumined by two small eyes which give the impression that he may be a very difficult person to deal with.

Jules is a born orderly. He has far more opportunities for exercising his subtlety behind the trenches than on the line; his vocation is to supply us with stores from outside the recognized limits. When on this quest, he fears no one and will go anywhere.

In September he had not been a couple of hours on duty before giving proof of his abilities: he found Roberty's canteen, which had gone astray during the retreat, replenished our store of tobacco, and brought back with him a rabbit, a fowl, three litres of wine and a bottle of spirits.

"You can put this latter into your coffee," he said; "it will then be worth drinking."

On the day we enticed him away, Jules, having lost his lieutenant, had also lost his position as orderly, and forfeiting his privileges occupied a lower position in the ranks. The adjutant, whose offers he had scorned, told him dryly that he would return to the squadron without any position at all. Jules did not like disputes, and pretended to submit to his destiny. He resumed his place in the squadron, though only to occupy himself with our personal affairs, in spite of officials, roll-calls and laws.

The personal affairs of six soldiers in the second class do not seem a very serious matter, especially in such busy times. Still, it took all Jules' activity to attend to them.

"I say, old fellow, we are coming down from the outposts this evening and sleeping in the village. Run along and find us a house."

Jules pretends to be considerably embarrassed. He raises his arms, takes his képi between his first finger and thumb, and scratching his head with his other three fingers, says—

"That's just your way! Jules, find me this, or Jules, find me that! This very morning, Jules cut the roll-call to do your messages, and the corporal marked him absent."

"Come! come! not so much talk. We shall be in the village by nightfall. You must get there before us. We rely on you for beds and dinner."

"What if I am caught by the gendarmes? Or suppose I meet the colonel?"

Then we appeal to his vanity—

"You can easily outwit all the gendarmes in the place. And a fellow like you is clever enough to make up some plausible tale that will satisfy the colonel."

An appeal is also made to his interests. Nothing further is needed, and when, five minutes afterwards, some one calls for Jules, he has disappeared.

The lodging is found and dinner in full swing. Jules confides to the company in general—

"At first the mistress refused to lodge six soldiers. But I talked her round. Besides, I gave her to understand that you were real gentlemen."

The natives of the South of France may be braggarts; anyhow, this one from the Franche-Comté could easily give them points. If mention is made of a farmer's wife or even of some lady of the manor within a radius of ten leagues, Jules begins to cluck like a hen, to slap his hands on his thighs, and with appropriate gestures he gives us to understand that he knows the lady in question very well indeed.

In his own district he was attached to a farm, and in his leisure hours he most certainly gave himself up to poaching.

Not on account of the war will he abandon his petty occupations. No, indeed, something must be done to break the monotony of trench life.

From time to time, in spite of gendarmes and regulations, Jules trips over to Soissons. He returns with an entire bazaar in his musettes.

"I sell it all again, you know, at cost price," he explains. "There are times when I lose."

"Of course!"

The other day he brought back a small hunting carbine. He also managed to procure the whole paraphernalia required for making snares and traps.

He is away for hours at a time, prowling about the woods, risking a court-martial a score of times, all to bring back a few tom-tits. On his return, blood and feathers are sticking to his fingers.

"You savage!" exclaims Verrier. "Doesn't war provide you with sufficient opportunities to satisfy your bloodthirsty instincts? Why should you go and kill tiny birds like these?"

"Don't cry over it; I am going to cook them for you, along with a few slices of bacon...."

To-day, thanks to Jules, we are en famille with the Achains. The little girl, ten years of age, has pretty blue eyes and light hair, confined in a black shawl, like her mother's. She looks at haversacks, rifles, and musettes, and asks in drawling accents—

"Do you really carry all these things on your back?"

Indeed, the haversacks do look of a respectable size: on the top the cover, rolled in the sleeping-bag; to the left, a tent canvas; to the right, a rubber mantle; in the middle, a cooking utensil; inside, linen and tobacco, a thread and needle-case, slippers, a large packet of letters, and reserve provisions. The whole weighs nearly thirty-five pounds. The musettes, too, are of enormous bulk, swollen with provisions, toilet utensils, a ball of bread, evidently so called because it is flat, spirit-flask, knife, fork, and spoon, a tin plate, and lastly a few packets of cartridges. At the bottom is a confused mass of tobacco and matches, bread-crumbs, and earth.

Sergeant Chaboy announces en passant—

"Be ready at five o'clock, my boys. It is the section's turn to act as artillery support at the Montagne farm."

The Germans are beginning to fire upon the village. At four o'clock the bombardment is at its height. Impossible to remain in the streets.

The light begins to fade, and the projectiles become fewer and fewer. The section musters.

The Montagne farm is isolated right in the centre of a plain which overlooks Bucy, and on which several batteries of our 75's have been installed.

Every day the Germans pour showers of projectiles on to the position. This evening their shells set fire to a straw-rick. The flames illumine the whole summit, throw into relief the desolate outlines of the trees, and project their lurid reflections on to the surrounding buildings. We hear the crackling of the straw as the flaming sprays are carried away in the distance. The section slowly advances towards the farm in columns of twos. We halt on reaching a stable, where we find a quantity of thick litter. All the better, for it is bitterly cold; several degrees below zero.

At midnight I am on guard with Reymond in front of the door. It is a clear, starry night. We hide ourselves in a corner against one of the pillars of the doorway, to obtain shelter from the icy north wind. Here we stand for a couple of hours. What is there for us to do? We begin by expressing, as Anatole France says: "most innocent thoughts in most crude terms."

Away in the distance the dull roar of a cannon. The shrieking sound draws nearer.

"Appears as though it were meant for us!"

The shell whirls past and bursts a hundred yards from the door.

A grunt of satisfaction on finding that the explosion has taken place at a safe distance.

One observation: the shrieking of shells almost at the end of their course reminds one of the howl of a dog baying the moon.

Shots follow one another. Every minute the distant "boom," then the hissing sound, which gradually grows more intense, and finally the explosion, a rending crash close at hand, followed by vibrations and the noise of broken branches. Not the slightest refuge for us.

"Not often have I been annoyed as I am this evening," remarks one of us.

"Nor I either!" remarks the other.

"They might have waited till we had finished sentry duty before bombarding us."

Renewed explosions. The door slightly opens, and the head of Corporal Chevalier appears.

"Is the bombardment pretty violent?"

"Bah! Nothing extraordinary."

"The fact is—the lieutenant has sent me to say that, if things begin to look too serious, you may return. Useless to get killed for nothing."

We would gladly have profited by the permission. Chevalier, however, does not belong to our squadron. Consequently we politely reply—

"All right, corporal, our best thanks to the lieutenant. We may as well finish our watch."

Chevalier's head disappears. The door shuts. Fresh shells.

"How stupid of us to swagger in this way!" we reflect.

On coming to relieve us, the two following sentries, after muffling themselves up by lantern light, ask—

"A pretty heavy bombardment just now, eh?"

I have the audacity to reply—

"Ah! We did not even pay attention to it, we were talking."

And so, "La tempeste finie, Panurge faict le bon compaignon," as Rabelais said.

Monday, 23rd November.

The lieutenant appears at the door and calls out—

"Everybody under shelter, to the grottoes. The bombardment is beginning again."

At that moment, indeed, a projectile dashes down upon one of the farm buildings, smashing in the stable roof. To reach the grottoes we have to run a hundred yards through the darkness. We are in the open. Those who have candles light them. Tableau. The grotto has been transformed into a sheep-fold. Several hundreds of sheep are moving to and fro, bleating all the time in stupid fashion.

Meanwhile, the German artillery is raining upon the farm and its outhouses. A fowl is killed on a dunghill by a shrapnel ball. What with the boom of the cannon and the bleating of the sheep, the hours pass very slowly. Reymond, however, pilots us over the grotto as though it were a gallery of Roman catacombs. Provided with a piece of candle, he mumbles away like a sexton: "Questo è la tomba di santa Cecilia; tutto marmo antico!" When the cannonade stops, out in the yard he organizes a fancy bullfight, in which each of us, supplied with the necessary accessories, in turn impersonates the bull, the espada, the banderillero, the picador, or the disembowelled steed.

We play like schoolboys at recreation time, until we are quite out of breath with laughter and exertion, and then sit down on the very spot around which shells have so recently been falling.

The Prussians have fired forty thousand francs' worth of munitions and have killed a fowl, which, by the way, our own gunners have eaten!

On the section returning to Bucy, the general impression is summed up in the remark—

"After all, it has been rare sport!"

Tuesday, 24th November.

Snow is falling, and so we remain indoors. The postman's visit forms our only distraction. After yesterday's uproar the guns are quiet to-day. No set of men are ever so capricious as gunners. The inhabitants of Bucy, who have spent a day and a night crouching in their cellars, walk about the streets this afternoon as though everything were once more normal. There is little damage done to the streets, since the Germans mainly fired with their 77's.

Wednesday, 25th November.

A lieutenant is chatting at the hospital door with the major. All of a sudden he falls to the ground. We gather round him, and find that he has received a bullet in the abdomen. The street opposite the hospital being perpendicular to the German trenches, spent bullets sometimes take it in enfilade, and an accident happens.

During roll-call, which takes place in the main street, a shrapnel explodes on a neighbouring house. Broken tiles rain down upon us. Instinctively we "form a carapace." The lieutenant has not stirred a muscle. "Surely," he remarks, "you are not going to get excited over a little falling dirt. Attention!" We all line up and stand at attention. The next moment the ranks are broken, and each man returns to his quarters, laughing and joking at the incident.

After all, we make a jest of everything. This is the secret of that dash and enthusiasm boasted of in the official communiqués, and about which civilians must have the most vague ideas. The good humour that has stood a campaign of four months must be in the grain; at all events, it is of quite a special kind.

The source of our morale lies in the fact that we accept life as we find it.

This evening the company returns to the trenches and sleeps in the grotto.

Thursday, 26th November.

The frost has disappeared; now we have a thaw with its inevitable filth and mud. The entrance of the grotto is a veritable sewer. We enter along slippery slopes, almost impassable.

Latest news from the kitchens: the regiment is about to leave for the fort of Arche, near Epinal, unless it goes on to Amiens ... unless, again, it remains here.

This evening, in the grotto, Maxence lies on his back smoking a cigarette. He murmurs softly to Reymond, who is making a sketch, some lines from the Fêtes galantes—

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau, Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

Varlet, naked down to the waist, turns round and round, rolling himself in his flannel girdle, one end of which is held tight by Meuret, who is always ready to lend a helping hand. Mauventre, Piaf, and the "Fireman" are playing cards with the corporal, making comments on each move. Charensac crouches down, drawing up an inventory of the wealth he has stored away in his haversack. The rest, rolled snugly in their coverings, sleep and snore.

Friday, 27th November.

Our artillery vigorously bombards the enemy's trenches. Nothing to do except watch the shells—and the rain—fall.

Saturday, 28th November.

In the front line the section occupies a new sector, not yet completed. A misty maddening rain chills us to the very bones. Impossible to see twenty yards in front of one. The kind of weather which gives you the impression that the sun has left this world and will never return.

Sunday, 29th November.

The 24th goes down to Bucy at six in the evening.

Our hosts know the hour we are to be relieved. They expect us.

"Sainte Vierge, what a filthy condition you are in!" exclaims Madame Achain.

We are delighted to see our beds once again. Madame Achain would gladly change the bed linen, if she had any—but she has not, and one must not be too dainty in war time.

Monday, 30th November.

Another quiet day spent by the fireside in conversation, playing cards and writing letters.

This morning Jacquard is charged with the making of our chocolate. When the six bowls, filled to the brim, are on the table, he calls out—

"Come, messieurs, breakfast is waiting, messieurs!"

How grandiloquent it sounds!

We appear, only half awake, slouching along in slippers and old shoes. If perchance the chocolate is boiled too much or too little, if it is too thick or too thin, then the patient Jacquard must submit to sarcastic reproaches, to complaints from men who, most assuredly, would not tolerate the slightest inconvenience!

Tuesday, 1st December.

To-day we are road-labourers, an occupation lacking interest, though preferable to that of grave-digger.

The section has been ordered to clean the Pont-Rouge road, in anticipation of the visit of the general. We start with shovels and brooms on our shoulders. Luckily, it is not raining. The Pont-Rouge road is filthy; that, however, is its slightest defect: it is also infested with projectiles. We are not enthusiastic about the work. No one is wounded.

Wednesday, 2nd; Thursday, 3rd December.

At eight o'clock the company musters in a farmyard, proceeding to a field north of Bucy for drill. The soil is ploughed by huge shells which daily continue to fall. Fortunately they have so far chosen a different hour from ours, thus avoiding unpleasant encounters. Here we have section school: "Count off in fours! Right wheel! Line up! Shoulder arms! Right! Left turn!—Left!"

The men manœuvre in very lethargic fashion. Even the words of command have no life in them. The sergeant shouts out—

"Right-about turn!—Right!"

He adds—

"This isn't a march at all, it's a paddle!"

Towards the end of the drill we deploy in skirmish line, and fling ourselves on our knees before a hail of imaginary bullets.

"Let each man practise the right position for charging. Fire three cartridges at the enemy debouching at the outskirts of the wood. Three hundred yards—Fire!"

The lieutenant pleads with us—

"Come, come, if you will drill well for five minutes I will march you back to quarters."

It is the greatest mistake in the world to drill without putting one's heart into it. As Belin emphatically says—

"Troops that cannot do manual exercises are no better than a flock of sheep."

And the rascal is right, too, as he always is.

Friday, 4th December.

At night the company musters to mount to the trenches. On the right, for a few hundred yards, we proceed along the side of the wood, whilst to the left stretches an endless field of beetroots, in the midst of which the Germans are entrenched. In this field has been dug the branch leading to the first line. It is completely dark, and the ground is quite soft; the twenty-five minutes' crossing of this branch is a most disagreeable piece of work. We knock against all sorts of corners, slip about, and fall against the slimy walls.

Passages open out from time to time; these are second-line trenches, or else branches connecting together the various sectors. Moreover, first- and second-line trenches resemble the branches, though somewhat wider and provided with earthen parapets in the direction of the enemy.

We are all on duty until nine o'clock. The Germans fire their rifles to inform us that they are there. We blaze away in their direction for the same reason.

About ten everything is calm. It is raining. Earth and sky seem blended in one general flood.

Varlet, with his hood, looks like a dwarf out of some book of fairy tales; Jacquard wears a knitted helmet, out of which emerges a fan-shaped beard; he covers his shoulders with an oil-cloth stole. He looks like a chorister masquerading as a crusader. Reymond, draped in a huge khaki poncho, might have been a member of the Holy League.

The walls of the trench are slippery and fall in. There are but few dug-outs, scarcely any of which can be used because of the water finding its way through the badly jointed planks. The only possible shelter consists of kennels made on the surface of the ground, into which a man may coil himself. Take care, however, lest they fall in!

We can do nothing but submit to the rain, and let ourselves be submerged. This is no longer war, it's a deluge.

Saturday, 5th December.

Everybody must be up on watch duty before dawn. This is the regulation hour for counter-attacks.... As a rule it is the quietest time of the day. About seven the cooks bring coffee and letters. After swallowing the one and devouring the others, there remains but little to do; we doze about, play cards, perhaps, in case we find a sufficiently dry spot. Or we may be sent off on a cleaning expedition, scraping the mud away from the floor of the branch trench.

About noon the cooks appear again—

"Lunch-time!"

There are two of them—Piaf and the "Fireman" in shirt-sleeves—one carrying the dish full of meat, the other carrying the two big vessels containing respectively soup and coffee.

They fill our plates and gamelles. Our hands are caked with earth. The "Fireman" pours out for each man a little of the mess alcohol—a nasty mixture containing tincture of iodine; we swallow it like whey. Frequently there is wine to drink. We drag out the meal to kill time.

From half-past three onwards we are very impatient. We shall not be relieved before nightfall. By reason of the narrowness of branches and trenches it becomes most difficult to make room for the new arrivals. They can pass along only when we squeeze ourselves into a corner, like herrings in a barrel. To-night the company is not going down into the grotto; it must occupy another emplacement, also in the front line.

Appearance of a German engine which we immediately nickname the "torpedo"—a formidable explosion preceded by no hissing sound whatsoever; a blinding flash, prolonged vibrations, projectiles flung in every direction. At first we are somewhat stupefied. As I am carrying an order from the lieutenant to the adjutant, a torpedo explodes on the parapet, lifts a couple of men off their feet and covers me with earth. No one is hurt. This new invention seems to make more noise than it does injury—on condition, of course, that the projectile does not come down direct on the trench itself.

Sunday, 6th December.

This morning the sun is shining! How pleasant not to have one's head bowed and one's back bent before the storm! Several days of incessant rain have transformed the trenches into streams of mud. We sink over our ankles in a slimy, yellowish cream. Third night in the first line.

Monday, 7th December.

We are relieved at five in the afternoon. We run through the branches in all the greater hurry because we are going to our quarters. Every dozen steps we slip or stumble.

I managed to reach the Achains' before the rest to order dinner. On the threshold I have to answer the invariable question: "No one missing?" I reply gaily—

"Of course not, but we are all very dirty and tired, and as hungry as wolves."

After removing our trappings and leaning our rifles in a corner, whilst awaiting the arrival of our friends, we relate the paltry happenings of the last four days: the dark nights and heavy rainfall, the skirmishes, the bombardment, etc.

"And what of you here, has much damage been caused?"

The fact is that our village is being shelled almost daily, but the inhabitants scarcely pay attention to it. They have acquired somewhat of our mentality as soldiers, just as we have adopted something of their peasant nature. They know that in war one must be astonished at nothing.

No, this time no great damage has been done.

"A 150 shell exploded in Madame B.'s garden, over there on the right, and père Untel just missed being killed in his loft by a spent ball."

We remark gravely—

"All the same, things look bad."

We shake our heads just as old fogies do when the crops are likely to prove a failure.

One old dame asks anxiously—

"At all events, you'll not let them come back here?"

At this moment our comrades burst in, Jacquard at the head, haversack on back, pipe in mouth, muddy and all muffled up. His big face, with its shaggy beard, beams with goodwill. He brandishes his big rifle in his small arms and thunders forth—

"Let them come back! No indeed, my good woman; they'd have to pass over our bodies first!"

We approve of what he says, and succeed in calming him down.

The mistress, an optimist, declares in her country accent—

"Shall I tell you what I think?"

"Certainly."

"Well, then, some fine day they will clear off without any one suspecting it."

"Mon Dieu, for my part, I shouldn't object if——"

Our existence is now as well regulated as that of any Government official: four days in the trenches, four days at Bucy, four days in the trenches, and so on.

How glad we are to get back to the house and our old habits!

Yes, we keep to these habits, though they are far different from those we followed in the bygone days of peace. It may be that we do so because we know them to be so fragile and uncertain, like ourselves, and at the mercy of the least of the hazards of war.

After dinner, then, one game of cards, two, three. Some other game as an occasional novelty, though we always return to the noble game of manilla.

Milliard goes from house to house with the letters for each squadron. Here he comes. A sound of footsteps in the yard. We raise our heads; is it he? It is. He knocks on the window-pane. We all spring to the door. The postman is welcomed as eagerly as though he were the bearer of victory and peace. He draws up to the lamp, reads the envelopes, and sits down. If there are but few letters he apologizes.

Henriot and he chatter away by the fireside for a few minutes.

"Come, boys, quick, give me your letters," says Milliard. "I have three more squadrons to serve."

Our thanks follow him right into the yard.

To bed early this evening.

Tuesday, 8th December.

We do the best we can to clean our clothes. A knife has to be used for scraping coats and puttees, to which great scales of mud are sticking. Disputes burst out. Who is the first for the hand-basin?

Some such remark as the following is heard—

"You're not going to keep it all to yourself, as you did last time, I suppose?"

The charge of selfishness is the one most frequently hurled at another man's head.

"You make use of it yourself first," says one man, "and then you think of others."

"Well, and what of yourself? Yesterday you refused me a bar of chocolate, because of the trouble it would have given you to unfasten your haversack."

"And you, the other day when preparing mess, didn't you go away and leave me to carry a huge pail all alone? Did you, or did you not?"

Such is the conversation of heroes!

The whole of the first day in quarters is spent in cleaning. At night all six of us appear shaven and brushed, combed and washed, and the far niente begins. A feeling of boredom comes over us. There is nothing to remind us that we are at war, none of war's accoutrements, at all events. Reymond has adopted a colourist's costume to rest in: a black and yellow streaked cap, a short green woollen jacket, blue cloth trousers, grey gaiters, a violet girdle from which hangs a broad knife in its sheath, a red and white-specked tobacco-pouch, and a long wick of orange-coloured tinder. The effect seems to him harmonious, and the lieutenant who happened to pass along and dropped in a few minutes ago appeared delighted and somewhat surprised.

The rest content themselves with a more sober get-up, though just as little military in style: blue cloth or chestnut velvet trousers, slippers, and frequently a woollen cap.

Nothing happens of a nature to enliven our existence. Drill in the morning, but this is something it is impossible to "cut."

Between meals I write letters. Maxence, seated near the fire, with his legs crossed and his hand under his chin, smokes cigarettes. He muses, and at the same time keeps an eye on a rice pudding on the point of boiling over. This native of Franche-Comté feasts on the most insipid things, and obstinately refuses to drink wine or to eat cheese. Fond of hunting, he chatters away to Jules, who comes from the same province. Landed proprietor and poacher discuss the different methods of tracking a hare, and talk seriously about other matters connected with hunting. In a corner Varlet reads everything he can lay his hands on, even old illustrated journals. Sometimes he starts off on an expedition and brings back a leg of mutton. Jacquard, a jack-of-all-trades, is always doing something, either cooking or repairing. Verrier, our treasurer, slowly and minutely brings the accounts up to date, with the gravity and seriousness he bestows on everything he undertakes. Simply watching him roll a cigarette enables one to see that he never does anything lightly.

About noon the Petit Parisien reaches Bucy. The reading of the communiqué and the dispatches gives us to understand how impossible it is to foresee the end of the war. Six months ... a year.... Such are the hypotheses we once laughed at, though now they appear logical enough. At bottom, we believe there will happen something unexpected and formidable which will bring victory and peace....

Then we begin to discuss matters. Since all six of us are bound by the ties of true friendship, there is nothing upon which we are of one mind: Varlet, a working electrician, who has often found it difficult to make ends meet, considers that everything is not for the best in the best of all societies. Maxence, with a stake in the land, regards Varlet as a dangerous customer. Jacquard, who is in the hosiery business, is a well-balanced individual, very optimistic, who reads between the lines of every dispatch the coming entry of the Russians into Berlin, and the complete exhaustion of Germany. Verrier is a moderate and restrained sort of fellow. He says: "I am just going to sleep a little," or "eat a little," or "wash myself a little." Always "a little." We call him: "not too much," or sometimes Verrierus tristis, the silent. He forms an interesting contrast to the exuberant Reymond.

Mother Achain and her little daughter, their heads enveloped in black kerchiefs and their hands clasped on their knees, smile quietly as they watch us bawl and gesticulate. Father Achain, in the darkest recess of the room, between fireplace and bed, is everlastingly drawing away at a pipe that has gone out. From time to time he walks to the door and stands there for a while. On returning, he says—

"There's some heavy firing going on above the Gué-Brûlé."

Saturday, 12th December.

Bad news from Russia....

At six in the evening we return to the trenches. Whilst marching along, our company crosses some light infantry.

"Hullo!" they say, "here come the foot-soldiers."

And what scorn they would convey by the word "foot-soldiers!"

Well, and what are they themselves, after all?

Sunday, 13th December.

The whole day is spent in the grotto. It rains so heavily that fatigue duty is suppressed. We are all either sitting or sprawling on the ground, engaged in reading, writing, or eating by the light of a few candles. A practical joke, repeated again and again, and of which we never tire, consists in taking aim at some one intently reading a letter or a book, and hurling at his candle a shoe, a loaf, or a gamelle. Sometimes a nose is hit instead of the candle. Thereupon huge guffaws ensue. Varlet, who considers that I am in a sad mood this evening, cannot resist the temptation of taking me by the feet and dragging me on my back three times round the room. I laugh heartily. Then we both crawl about on all-fours, look in the chopped straw for my pipe, tobacco-pouch, knife, and the small change that has dropped from my pocket.

Another distraction: we have to carry from the grotto to the first-line trenches great rolls of barbed wire, as wide as a barrel and several yards in length. The things are most difficult to handle. On reaching the outposts, we hoist them over the parapet.

Henriot and Milliard, having fastened up the letters and parcels in bags, place these bags on to a barrow and mount to the trenches. The ascent is steep, and the barrow sticks in the mud. From afar we see our two friends climbing the hill. Some one shouts out—

"Letters!"

Thereupon there is a rush in the direction of the postman. A dozen men are now wheeling the barrow along. Then come the questions—

"Is there a letter for me? Tell me if my parcel has arrived?"

If the answer is in the affirmative—

"Quick, give it to me; hurry up!"

Then the distribution takes place very speedily, for Milliard never gets in a temper. We enter the grotto, and at the foot of one of the great pillars supporting the vault Milliard attends to his business. His silhouette and those of the men around show up black against the background of light formed by the opening of the grotto. A dismal-looking tree, standing on a rising ground, exhibits its leafless branches.

When the weather is fine the distribution takes place outside skirting the wood, whose leaves we have seen first turn yellow and then fall to the ground....

Milliard says—

"Don't crowd around; you shall all be served in turn!"

We group around him.

"Now for the parcels!" Milliard calls out the names.

"Present! Here!"

The parcel flies above our heads in the direction of the answer.

Monday, 14th December.

We are now in the first line, sometimes keeping a watch over the field of beetroots, sometimes, pick or shovel in hand, digging and clearing away.

The entire plain is furrowed with a vast network of fortifications. The Germans construct listening posts eighty yards distant from our own. In a few more weeks the wires will be touching one another.

From our front lines project antennæ or feelers, portions of trench driven as near as possible to the enemy, and connected with the main trench by a deep zigzag branch.

For sheltering purposes we build small huts somewhat resembling those in which the bodies were deposited in the catacombs. Here the men keep themselves dry, at all events. A couple of tent canvasses unfolded in front of the opening are a protection from the cold, and enable one to light a candle without making oneself a target for the enemy.

During the night, over a sector of one kilometre, there are fired on an average a thousand rifle shots which neither kill nor wound a single man. The object of this fusillade is simply to prevent the patrols from moving to and fro between the lines.

Tuesday, 15th December.

For some days past I have been feeling shaky. Really I shall have to go to the hospital. The day sergeant passes through the trenches and calls out—

"Any one ill to-day?"

"Yes, I am."

He writes down my name.

"Is that all? Come, now, there must be some one else. Is any one tired belonging to the 24th?"

He goes from squadron to squadron picking up those who are sick.

Five poilus give themselves up. As a matter of fact, it is not very pleasant to report yourself ill in the first line. You have first to make your way through the branches, then go down to Bucy along a road that is being bombarded, and finally return to where you started unless the major gives his verdict that you are to be "exempt from trench service."

At the top of the village, alongside a small hill, a temporary hospital has been fitted up in a rather fine-looking house, abandoned by its owners at the time of the offensive of von Kluck. The lawns are ornamented with statues.

In the centre of the yard patients await the hour of the doctor's visit. Few serious cases; chiefly the wan expressions and dejected looks of tired men.

Here comes the major. He has just finished breakfast with the colonel, who is staying at the château opposite. He is from the Vosges—young-looking and slim, average height, of ruddy complexion, with a rough voice and dark, piercing eyes. As each man awaits his turn he questions the attendants—

"Is the major in good humour this morning?"

The examination begins. The patients enter in batches of ten. They disrobe in a corner, jostling and being jostled by their neighbours. They run a great risk of never seeing their clothes again, for these latter are deposited along the wall, and speedily become trampled about the floor.

The major sits in front of a table, near the window. He spends half a minute with each man.

Sometimes a man has a variety of ailments. He suffers all over: head and loins, liver and heart and feet.

"Clear out at once!" exclaims the major.

Those who come from rural districts all complain of the stomach, an organ which is just as likely to represent to their minds the bronchi as the intestines. The doctor accordingly asks—

"Which stomach? The one that eats or the one that breathes?"

Every one receives his deserts. The genuine cases are "exempt from trench service"; those who are war-worn and tired out are exempted from some particular duty. As for the rest, the major writes opposite their names on the sergeant's card the words, Visite motivée, a cabalistic formula implying that there was no reason whatsoever why they should have come up for examination.

Things are carried on just the same as in barracks; the same tricks are employed. The other day Jules unhesitatingly placed on the stove the thermometer which the attendant had put in his armpit. The mercury rose to 430 Centigrade! The doctor nearly had a fit. Jules is still outside the hospital walls.

At the exit those officially recognized as ill appear with radiant faces; those who have met with a snubbing and are declared to be well have drawn features and generally the air of a man at death's door.

Opposite my name the major has written, "To be kept in hospital." I look as though I had won the first prize in a lottery, and already feel considerably better.

The attendants carry me off to their room, a regular paradise. A 105 shell has fallen right on the staircase, reducing everything to matchwood on its way, but the rest of the place is intact: beds, a large fire, a good table, lamps. We play at cards, smoke, chat, do anything to kill time. Outside, for a change, the rain falls harder than ever.

CHAPTER X

BOMBARDMENTS

Thursday, 17th December.

I leave the hospital and make my way to the Achains' to wait for my five mates, who at nightfall will come down from the trenches with the rest of the company. I lay the cover: heavy plates with pieces broken off, tin forks and spoons, thick glasses. No knives; each man must supply his own.

Here they come at last.... What a state they are in! Mud from head to foot. Quick with their letters, slippers, and something to eat. We stay up late, chatting by the fireside.

Friday, 18th December.

This evening the section is on guard at the Montagne farm, but Reymond, momentarily requisitioned for some design work at the commander's bureau, remains at Bucy; I also stay behind, having just left the hospital.

This Montagne farm is anything but a pleasant spot. Yesterday another light infantryman was carried away with his head shattered by a 150-gun shell.

Our friends start at four. We should be glad to see them back again already.

"Now, be careful. No nonsense, remember!"

A tête-à-tête dinner, a very quiet affair, after which we lie down on our beds.

"How comfortable!"

Yes, indeed, this is the real thing. We might almost imagine ourselves back in civil life!

The low-roofed room, which receives air and light only by way of the door, was evidently white-washed long ago. There are spiders' webs in every corner. The floor consists of beaten earth. The walls are bare except for two chromos—Nicholas II and Félix Faure—just visible beneath fly-stained glasses. The beds take up almost the entire space available. We sleep right through the night and late into the next morning. The hours spent in profound slumber represent so much gained from the war.

Saturday, 19th December.

Yesterday we were right in feeling anxious about our friends. From daybreak onwards the farm has been bombarded over our heads. The shells roar with varying intensity as they pass, according to their size. The little ten-year-old girl, skipping about the yard in her sabots, hums out—

"There! That's a 210 at least, and this one a 105. Oh, that little one's but a 77!"

A loud crash, however, sends her flying into the cellar. When she comes up again she tremblingly clutches her mother's skirt. Madame Achain gives her a good shaking.

"What's the matter with you, little stupid?"

"Oh, I'm frightened of the shells!"

"A fine tale, indeed! Look at these messieurs, are they frightened?"

These messieurs, quietly seated, affect an impassive attitude, to reassure the child.

About three o'clock a lull. We walk over to visit the hospital attendants. A hearty welcome, cups of tea, every one very polite. A couple of armchairs are provided for us by the fireplace. We are treated like lords of a manor.

The Germans are now firing upon Vénizel, some distance farther away. The petrol works seem to be in flames. Our hosts invite us to view the spectacle from the second floor. It is hazy, however, and nothing can be distinguished except a dense cloud of yellowish smoke on the other bank of the Aisne.

"Really, you have no luck at all!" exclaim the attendants; "generally we can make out Vénizel as distinctly as though we were in the town itself."

Soissons also is being violently bombarded.

At night our friends return from the Montagne farm. Varlet affirms—

"We were awfully sorry for you. You missed the marmites falling all about your ears."

A couple of projectiles, it seems, had fallen right on to the cattle-shed; a shrapnel had crashed through the dormer-window of the stable where the squadron lay stretched on the ground, and riddled the door with bullets. The section had to take refuge in the grotto-like sheep-fold in the midst of the sheep, now bleating louder than ever.

Sunday, 20th December.

The hours pass very slowly. This morning, for a couple of hours, we had to return to the trenches, to clear away the earth and make them deeper, and so counteract the ravages of the rain.

Back in Bucy, each of us settles down in a corner with a book or newspaper. During the past few days we have resumed a liking for printed characters. People may send us books, no matter on what subject, if only they will help to pass the time. Whatever takes the poor soldier out of a purely animal life to some extent is welcome.

Another shower of projectiles on Bucy. The windows shake and the little girl begins to cry. Madame Achain sighs.

"Do the savages want to demolish our house?"

Suddenly there is a lull. Why does a bombardment begin? Why does it stop? A mystery: the designs of gunners are inscrutable.

Girard, a hospital attendant, pays us a return visit. We thank him for his kind intentions.

"Oh, it's nothing at all," he says.

Is Bucy to become a society rendez-vous? Girard, who just misses falling as he seats himself on a tottering chair, remarks cheerfully—

"What nice quarters you have here!"

Madame Achain is flattered; so are we.

The village streets are strewn with sulphur from to-day's shells. A hayrick has been set on fire and a horse killed close to Madame Maillard's.

Varlet takes me to see this Madame Maillard. Arm in arm we pass along the main street. Right and left ruined and disembowelled houses alternate with buildings almost or wholly intact.

Poor village! Last September it was a pretty little market-town, like many another on the banks of the Aisne, where the houses have a style distinctively their own. The white stone doorways and flights of steps, the violet slate roofs of Champagne and the Ile-de-France, match the staircase gables of neighbouring Flanders. Now the bright, cheerful houses are dilapidated and shattered; the tax-collector's house is empty, so is the baker's. Nor has the church been spared; the recent cannonade has added to the former ruin and desolation.

The civilians, too, are away. We talk to those who have stayed, and daily make progress in the dialect of the place. We know that ce ch'tiot ila means "this little boy," as we have already discovered that parents and grandparents call themselves tayons and ratayons. Brave civilians! No one ever mentions them. Now, this isn't right. Not only have they seen the young ones leave for the front, not only do they live through the horrors of war, but many of them have relations in neighbouring villages occupied by the enemy. Scarcely any are left except women and old men. The latter have passed through 1870; they give their reasons for their present confidence in the result of the war and tell of the miseries of former days.

On the town hall square are drawn up the carriages of the regimental train. Opposite are two ruined hovels and a farm, the roof of which has fallen in, a yard strewn with debris, now the playground of dogs and cats, ducks and hens. Between two calcined pieces of wall stands Madame Maillard's little house. We knock at the door.

"Come in!"

We now find ourselves in one of the gayest corners of Bucy; a very select place, moreover, to which one can only gain admittance by introduction. Here Milliard the postman is the oracle, along with Henriot, his acolyte. Here lodges the train de combat, i.e. the conductors of the regimental carriages. These infantry, who ride on horseback all the same, form a separate corporation. Even their dress is different from that of other soldiers: leather jackets and spurs. Their names are Charlot, Petit-Louis, and Grand-Victor. Their functions take them to Soissons and bring them daily into contact with the rearguard service.

Varlet, as a friend, has requested permission to introduce me. His request has been backed by Milliard and Henriot.

"Bring him along, then," they said.

At any hour of the day one can always find at Madame Maillard's white wine, cards and tobacco. In a corner Henriot is sorting the letters. Milliard, after noting the parcels in a book, encloses them in a big bag.

"Are the letters for Achains' ready?" asks Varlet.

"Yes, here's the packet. We will bring you the parcels shortly."

The first thing we do on our return is to shout out—

"We have each had a pint of white wine at the train de combat."

"White wine, impossible! You lucky fellows!"

I have no idea why white wine is so scarce. In war there are hosts of things one cannot understand at all.

Monday, 21st December.

During the night a regiment of territorials have arrived who have not yet seen fire. They make a fine début, for Bucy is subjected to a heavier bombardment than ever; explosions for three hours without a break. A rain of iron splinters and balls falls upon the roof of our lodging. The tiles come toppling down into the yard. Varlet, who has gone for some of the famous white wine to the train de combat, rushes into the room, looking horribly scared as he clasps three bottles to his breast. At the corner of the street he had encountered two shrapnels.

"The first," he said, "went on its way, but I thought the second had got me. It knocked a piece off the doorpost beneath which I had rushed for shelter."

"Oh, you wouldn't have been any great loss, but the bottles——"

The house shakes with the shock of the explosions, which come nearer and nearer. Sabots are clattering in the yard. The Achains and the women from neighbouring houses hurry to take refuge in the cellar. We should be wise to follow their example. That, however, would mean leaving the lunch, which is simmering on the fire! Besides, there's something attractive in the idea of brazening the thing out.

The explosions continue. By way of the chimney, which serves as an acoustic tube, we hear the dull, distant detonation as the shell leaves the gun, then the hissing sound, which increases in volume, and finally the violent explosion a few yards away.

A projectile crashes through the roof of the house opposite.

"Suppose we go and see how they are getting along in the cellar?" anxiously suggests Jules.

In a corner crouch the Achains and five or six other women. Sighs and lamentations; invocations to Jesus and Mary!

"Is the house demolished?" asks Madame Achain.

"No, not yet."

At this very moment a shell bursts in the yard.

Ten minutes afterwards, Maxence, who prefers to be more at his ease, mutters—

"It's not very pleasant here. I'm going up."

We follow him. The six of us return to the common room above. Well, suppose we lunch. We take our places at the table, whilst Jacquard carries a pan full of haricot beans to the refugees in the cellar.

Finally the bombardment ceases. Once more the streets are strewn with sulphur. By a miracle nothing is set on fire. A light infantryman and eight horses are killed. Some more rubbish is scattered about the village, where, by the way, life is soon going on as usual.

At five the company returns to the front line. The engineers have constructed shelters for the squadron, six feet below the surface, stoutly propped up by large pieces of timber. One of these tiny habitations is assigned to us, a tolerably warm and perfectly secure sort of room, where one can come for a nap between two watches, and, a more important matter, speak aloud, smoke, and light candles. The shelters of the previous days, being unsupported, have all been washed away by the rain.

Then comes a violent fusillade, beginning far away to the left, with a sound as of rending cloth; it spreads over the whole line. The lieutenant comes out of his dug-out; he orders Jacquard and myself to start the beacon burning.

We both try to light the great acetylene lantern, opening the tap when it should be closed, and closing it when it should be open. At last, to our great surprise, the flame bursts forth. A corporal leaps on the little fuse-projecting rifle and fires it. The fuses rise into the air and fall to the ground, shedding a strong white light over a radius of three hundred yards.

Sergeant Chaboy gives the command to fire. So we load and fire, until our rifles are burning hot. Each man's hundred and fifty cartridges are all gone in less than an hour. Firing slackens on both sides. A sudden return to a state of dead calm.

Munitions are distributed around. Only one man wounded in the 24th: a corporal, who was with a patrol that went out just before the alarm. He was surprised by the fusillade when on the point of rejoining his men, who had already returned to the trench. Caught between two fires, he crouched behind a small elevation, and instinctively protected his head with his right arm. This arm received six bullets, French and German alike. The sergeant in command of the patrol goes out into the hail of iron to bring back the wounded man, and returns intact, though his clothes are torn to shreds and his hands are all blood-stained. The corporal's arm is reduced to pulp, and his thigh has also received a ball. The hæmorrhage is stopped as well as circumstances permit.

The lieutenant comes round and says—

"Keep your eyes open, the attack will certainly recommence."

Has there really been an attack?

"They do that sort of thing to prevent our falling asleep," growls one man.

The rain has stopped. Each man leans against the trench wall and groups form. We converse in low tones, hiding the light of the pipes in the hollow of the hand, and await events.

At midnight a fresh alarm. The fusillade upon Crouy begins again, and in a few seconds is raging along the entire line. The cannon also are firing. The field of beetroots is lit up by fuses. We maintain an uninterrupted fire under the quiet command of Sergeant Chaboy. A few balls ricochet into the trenches and eight men are wounded.

After forty-five minutes of furious firing everything again becomes calm. A few more salvos and a final crackling of the mitrailleuses, and it is over. Profound silence throughout the rest of the night. We cannot understand it.

The company has spent thirty thousand cartridges, perhaps without killing a single German.

Tuesday, 22nd December.

Still in the first line, though in a sector farther away from the enemy.

Reymond invites a few friends to inaugurate an exhibition of drawings he has just finished. Into the recesses of the trench walls enormous beetroots are fitted. On the slices of these hard white roots (they resemble in no way the beetroot of the salad-bowl), cut clean through with a chop from a spade, Reymond has sketched, with a violet crayon, some of the heads of the section.

Here, with its prominent skull and nose, we have the pessimist Mauventre, who at the faintest distant roar of the cannon sighs—

"Here come the marmites! They'll be the death of us all yet, see if they're not!"

Reymond has well caught the anxious, troubled features of this intrepid soldier.

On another slice of beetroot is the droll silhouette of Corporal Davor, his startled face almost hidden between his shoulders and his arms akimbo. Davor goes about, at night-time, to stir up those on sentry duty.

"Keep a watch on the right. Keep a watch on the left."

One source of diversion for us is to assume, whenever he passes, the indifferent air of one who ridicules the German attacks.

We all figure in the collection. Varlet is a striking type, with his badger profile immoderately lengthened out by a pipe in the form of a shell or conch, which appears to be soldered on to his nose.

The beetroot haunts our very dreams. Since we are fated to be tormented with the beetroot for all eternity, we may as well extract what fun we can from it.

CHAPTER XI

CHRISTMAS

Wednesday, 23rd December.

The third day in the front line. The section is on guard at the telephone. There is a good gourbi or hut provided for each half-section. Two hours' sentry duty on the Vregny road, along which a spent ball comes whistling from time to time.

A pleasant diversion; Captain P—— of the Flying Corps arrives from Paris in a motor-car, and sends for Reymond and myself.

We go down to the car, which has come to a halt below the grotto. Muddy and slimy, enveloped in multi-coloured wrappings, rifle and cartridges hanging on to our persons, pipes in mouth and bearded faces, dirty and grimy, we all the same greet the captain with a very martial military salute.

He has brought us an enormous hamper of provisions. What luck! We are now assured of keeping up Christmas-eve. He also brings us letters, and offers to take back any messages from ourselves. In a dreamy maze of wonder we gaze upon this astonishing individual, who will be in Paris to-night, and whose surroundings are something else than fields of beetroots.

Whilst engaged in conversation, a 150 shell falls a few yards from the car. It fails to explode.

Captain P—— briefly gives us the news. The war will last longer than people think; perhaps another five or six months. We ourselves, it appears, are in a very quiet sector, neither attacked nor attacking, just mounting guard.

Thursday, 24th December.

A bright sun, fine and cold weather. The company go down to the grotto, where they are to sleep to-night. Consequently we shall celebrate our Christmas-eve "beneath these vaults of stone" as the song goes in Don Carlos.

Here comes the postman. What a heap of parcels! We spend the afternoon in unpacking them; the war is forgotten; our main preoccupation is to prepare a dinner to which the squadron will all contribute. Jules has gone down to Bucy; for once he has received the lieutenant's permission. His errand is to bring back some wine.

Crouching in a corner, with a bayonet-candlestick by my side, I write away. The man next to me becomes irritated by my silence and evident preoccupation.

"What are you writing?" he asks.

"A letter to my servant."

"Well! That's the very last thing I should have expected you to do."

"You fool! I'm giving her instructions to send out my New Year's gifts, telling her to buy boxes of sweets and chocolates, and giving her the addresses to which they are to be sent, with my card."

No sooner have I spoken than a whole string of epithets—snob, poseur, dandy—comes down on my devoted head. I reply in very dignified fashion—

"Oh, indeed! Then you cannot even tolerate ordinary politeness in a man?"

"Politeness! Just look at yourself in a mirror. You would be better employed in giving yourself a scrub down."

At eight o'clock the corner of the grotto containing the first squadron is illuminated with a goodly number of candles.

In the first place, for a successful Christmas-eve celebration we must have some sourcrout—Alsatian, of course. There are five large tins of it, along with a knuckle of ham. Then follow all kinds of sausages, one of which has come from Milan. We speedily dispatch it, at the same time exhorting our "Latin sister" to join in with us. Carried away by an irresistible impulse, the squadron takes by assault several pâtés de foie gras. The dessert is most varied: pears, oranges, preserves in jars, in tubes and in pails, a pudding which flames up when you apply a match to it, and, last of all, a drink which the cook has most carefully prepared: coffee with the real odour of coffee.

It is past ten o'clock. The bottles are empty. Every one is very gay and lively; no one intoxicated.

So pleasant an evening cannot end without music.

The concert begins with our old marching songs, those we used to sing at drill, or when tramping the dusty roads, to quicken our speed, songs which we run the risk of forgetting in this accursed war where we scarcely stir a foot. The words are not invariably to be recommended, but the familiar swing and rhythm which used to make us forget the weight of our haversacks, this evening make us forget our burdens of worry and ennui. Most conscientiously do we brawl out the tunes. The great advantage of the grotto lies in the fact that one can shout as loud as one pleases.

The lieutenant lifts up the tent canvas with which we have barricaded our den.

"Well! This is something like! You are doing it! May I come in?"

"Of course, mon lieutenant!"

We give him a seat on an empty bag, and the concert recommences.

Singers, with some pretence to a voice, try hard to carry off their sentimental or grandiloquent ditties, but it is the motley repertoire of absurdity and ridicule that meets with the success of the evening: the songs of Montmartre, artistes' refrains, fertile in spicy nonsense. We mark time by tapping our empty plates with the back of the hand. The noisy merriment is intensified when we come to the chorus.

With frenzied enthusiasm the squadron shouts out the chorus of Hervé's Turcs—

Nous, nous sommes les soldats Et nous marchons au pas, Plus souvent au trépas....

And now Charensac comes forward.

"Make way for the Ambassador of Auvergne," barks out Varlet.

"Quite right, I am from Auvergne, and I'm going to dance the bourrée."

He dances it, all alone. Some of the audience, making a humming sound with their hands, the rest whistling or else beating time with cans and gamelles, form an improvised orchestra, half Spanish, half negro. The dancer's big round face, flanked with little tufts of black whiskers, lights up. He is both the Auvergnat and his betrothed—advancing, receding, seeming to escape from himself. When you think he is utterly exhausted, he still finds it possible to shout out in joyous accents—

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, a collection for 'l'artisse.'"

And he mimics in succession a lion-tamer and a lady walking the tight rope. The sous rain down into his képi.

Thereupon Charensac strikes a lyrical vein. He sings in the patois of Auvergne, and, being in an expansive mood, relates the whole of his life, from his birth down to the present day, forgetting nothing, not even his wedding festivities, in the course of which he assures us that he thrashed his mother-in-law.

Charensac's eloquence is made up of hiccoughs and invocations, songs and laughter, but we understand all the same. We gather that this giant of an Auvergnat is a compound of landowner, estate manager, Government official, and representative of his syndicate at the Bourse du Travail. I find I have had to come to the front to learn that a keen sense of the rights of property is not incompatible with the spirit of revolutionary claims.

Charensac stops for a moment, exhausted. Thereupon Reymond, who has had his eyes fixed on him for some time, leans on his elbow, and from the corner in which he has been lying, remarks—

"You don't know whom you make me think of, Charensac, always shouting and stuffing like a huge ogre? I'll tell you; you remind me of old Ubu."

"Who's old Ubu?" asks the other.

"Old Ubu——" begins Reymond.

Startled, I burst out—

"You're not going to tell the first squadron who old Ubu was?"

"Don't you interrupt."

And Reymond explains. In profound silence we listen as he relates how Ubu was the first man who recommended that eight bullets should be put into a rifle, because with eight bullets it is possible to kill eight of the enemy, and you have that number the less to account for. The thing that delights the first squadron is Ubu's prophetic description of the modern battle: "... We have the foot-soldiers at the foot of the hill ... the cavalry behind them to burst upon the jumbled mass of combatants, and the artillery round by the windmill here to fire upon them all." The men clap their hands in delight and exclaim knowingly: "Yes, that's it! The very thing!"

Finally Reymond says that Ubu, like Charensac, was a sort of enormous giant, with a voice of thunder and an insatiable appetite.

After this, Charensac is never called anything but old Ubu, and as the sly rascal sees here a new excuse for the satisfaction of his appetites, he accepts the surname with enthusiasm.

Old Ubu will become popular in the 352nd Regiment, and rightly so. In warfare it is necessary to evoke the shade of Jarry as frequently as that of Homer.

Midnight. A procession of magi moves along the galleries. Reymond, a muffler wrapped turban-wise round his head and majestically draped in the folds of a poncho, carries the myrrh in a gamelle. The tent pickets serve the purpose of sceptres. Some one walks backwards in front of the kings, with an electric lamp raised above his head. This represents the star.

The star guides us back to our crèche, where the candles have just flickered out. Kings and shepherds lie pêle-mêle on the ground, and the loud snoring soon proves them to be sound asleep.

Friday, 25th December.

At half-past six the sergeants shout into the grotto—

"Up, 24th, and fully equipped!"

"What's this?... What's the matter?"

"Get up at once; within a quarter of an hour we must be in the fighting line."

Each man, half-awake, puts on his boots and his puttees and fastens on his haversack.

Muster in front of the grotto: a frightful din. From Crouy to Vailly every single battery keeps up an uninterrupted fire on the German trenches. What an awakening we are giving them for their Christmas!

In a few words the lieutenant explains the day's programme—

"Attacks on the left as soon as the bombardment is over. In front of Bucy we are commanded not to move. The 24th must hold the support trenches and keep in readiness 'for any eventuality.'"

The usual thing!

This morning the fighting emplacements are not very dangerous. The company deploys along the path which skirts the ridge on a level with the grotto. This is the first line as it was at the beginning of November; to-day the first line is over five hundred yards forward.

Men belonging to the 23rd relate how the Germans have been singing hymns all night long. They must have been celebrating their triumphs; our artillery will bring them all back to their senses. The shells hammer away at the frozen soil, tearing it up when they explode. Impossible to hear oneself speak in the midst of the uproar. The sky is pale blue, gradually assuming a darker tint. The sun is shining brightly, but it affords no warmth. Each man sends out from his mouth tiny clouds with every breath.

On the road between the loop-holes there are still to be seen some of the branch-constructed shelters in which we lodged a couple of months ago. With the exception of two on sentry duty, we are going to finish here our interrupted Christmas dreams.

In war-time, unless he is sent on guard or given fatigue duty, the foot-soldier makes his bed anywhere and anyhow. In case he has insufficient room he shrinks into as small space as possible, his knees touching his chin. The cartridge cases of the man behind him dig into his ribs, and those of the man in front crush his stomach, the hilt of the bayonet finds a place between two other ribs, whilst the sheath always seems twisted and bent.... Well, it can't be helped. You just settle down as well as you can, and you dream, whether awake or asleep.

From time to time some one will growl out, "Its impossible to sleep with such a noise going on!" and off he falls at once into a deep slumber.

A joyless day seems in store for us. Shall we be attacked? Or are we to attack?

A brief distraction takes the form of a young mouse, which comes out of its hole close to our feet, and is by no means startled by the sight of six poilus seated around on the floor. Soon it scampers away, but immediately reappears and fastens its impudent eyes upon us. The roar of the cannon does not seem to disturb its tiny ears. It is neutral. I quietly put out my hand, but evidently the gesture is too familiar, for the mouse re-enters its trench and appears no more.

At two o'clock the 24th are ordered to equip and muster. It appears that we are to relieve the 23rd in the first line.

News arrives: our attack in the direction of Crouy has succeeded only partially. The artillery duel is coming to an end. We appreciate the silence that follows.

We are fixed up in the first line. I spend a couple of hours with Verrier at the listening post, anything but a pleasant spot. The Germans are fifty yards away. By risking an eye at the loop-hole we distinctly make out their wires and the mounds of earth behind which they are. At night we have to keep our ears alive to the faintest sound to prevent ourselves from being taken prisoners or massacred by a patrol party.

An interlude. The Germans are imitating the cries of various animals: cock and dog, calf and pig.

We ask for news of the Kaiser. They reply—

"He's quite well, thanks. We'll see you again shortly in Paris."

A single though expressive word is our retort.

Again they shout to us from the enemy's trenches—

"A merry Christmas! Send us some wine."

Then they sing the Marseillaise!

Saturday, 26th December.

This morning we found the water frozen in our cans.

The cooks, when bringing in the soup, assure us that the Hindus have been sent for to make an attack on Crouy. They describe minutely how they are dressed.

"There is a fellow in the train de combat," says "the Fireman," "who has come across them at Soissons."

Thereupon Jacquard cannot contain himself for joy. Being of a most optimistic temperament, he sees the Sikhs and Gurkhas coming down Hill 132 and cutting our invaders' throats. He endeavours to give his foolish face an expression of ferocity, and explains how the Hindus attack.

"The beggars glide about noiselessly in the dark, like serpents. Impossible to hear them coming. Before you are aware they are upon you, cutting your throat with the big knife they hold between their teeth...."

"Bigre! Lucky for us they're on our side."

But where has Jacquard, who has never travelled beyond the neighbourhoods of the Rue de Sentier and Levallois-Perret, obtained such detailed information about the warlike habits of these distant peoples?

Meanwhile there is a dead calm; they forget to relieve us. The section returns to Bucy after forty hours' outpost duty. We quarter in a half-ruined house which contains scarcely enough room to lie down in. We sleep in higgledy-piggledy fashion with our comrades, the feet of one man against the face of another, and vice versa.

Sunday, 27th December.

No means of returning to the Achains', the company being fixed up at the other extremity of the village. I knock at the door of the Ronchards, the brother and sister who showed us hospitality one afternoon last month. They place at our disposal a large well-warmed room, where we can all six sleep on an enormous litter of straw.

Mademoiselle Ronchard has not yet recovered from her disappointment at our not eating her rabbit stew. The stove begins to roar and we come back to life again.

A detail: we find ourselves covered with fleas. An energetic hunt commences. It is not without results.

We hear a voice in the street and rush out. The Montagne farm is a mass of flame, the result of a bombardment which has lasted several hours. The entire hill is illumined; even from this distance we can hear the roar of the fire. Beams fall to the ground and flames of fire rise into the air. Dark silhouettes are seen in the neighbourhood. Without a word we gaze long at the sinister spectacle. Some one simply remarks—

"The pity of it all!"

We return to the Ronchards.

Monday, 28th December.

Thaw and rain, creating mud and all the old troubles over again. We remain indoors at the Ronchards'.

How calm and quiet this evening! There are six of us, feet in slippers, sitting round the table. Some are reading, others writing by the soft light of a lamp. Are we the same persons who, only the day before yesterday, were wallowing in the trench between two walls of mud? Are we really at war, at the front, with the enemy less than a mile away? Our friends and relatives, whose letters betray constant anxiety on our behalf, invariably imagine us in the thick of the fight. If only they could know, this very moment, that we are in such comfortable quarters, that there is such an element of peace in our sad surroundings!

The howling wind makes us appreciate by contrast the joy of being under cover. The distant firing sounds like the noise made by a cart as it jolts along over the pavings.

Tuesday, 29th December.

An hour's drill this morning in the shell-ploughed fields, manual exercise and section school, just to remind us that we are soldiers. Hair review by the lieutenant in the afternoon. The entire company must pass through the barber's hands.

Charensac bursts into our room, shouting out, "Good day. How are you, my young friends?" His voice upsets us completely, and we roughly inquire whether he has not yet learnt the value of silence after five months of warfare. Thereupon he explains in his gibberish—

"Don't get angry. I know some one at Crouy who has received a supply of benedictine and all sorts of good things to eat. I at once thought of you, for I know my generous little mates will pay for me a drink...."

He is absolved. A bottle of benedictine is worth considering at certain moments of one's life, and so Charensac starts for Crouy, supplied with funds, precise instructions, and promises.

In ordinary times the road to Crouy is probably as good as any other road. But these are not ordinary times. Shells are continually falling, and a portion of the village of Crouy itself is in the hands of the enemy. A German machine-gunner, whom we know well, opens fire when any one passes a certain corner. Charensac, however, disdains the very idea of peril; he is very brave. The other day, when he was brawling away as usual, his weary neighbour interrupted him—