The descent commenced by great jerks and it seemed as if the machine would collapse and fall apart---- Flameng, my pilot, made a sign "that it could go very bad with us----" We went through a great cloud and I began to believe we would crash to earth. Despite three accidents in two days, this will be very pretty, I say to myself. I thought that after what I had seen these last three months, it would be absolutely idiotic to die in a bed, and I began to laugh at the idea---- The _avion_ lands like a butterfly on a prairie---- THE MARQUIS AND THE MARCHIONESS, NETTANCOURT. _November_, 1916. We had gone to take a turn around Avocourt Hill; the air was magnificent. We were 7,000 feet high directly above the spot we were going to land---- The major stopped his motor and commenced to descend in circles; I recognized the château, the village, the station---- On a road in the fields, a man, a woman, and a dog--even at this altitude it was impossible not to know them, the three characteristic specimens of a bygone age, more fanciful than Nature herself! I pointed my finger toward the ground so that Major Armengaud might see them also. He looked and likewise began to laugh---- I swear, it was _drôle_: like three big flies jigging on the bald head of an old man!---- THE MAN WHO KNOWS THE SECTOR BETTER THAN ANYONE, AINES. _December_ 1, 1916. I am not sure of the road. It is night and as we are close to the lines I stop the machine---- I see a _poilu_ and beckon him over. "Do you know this territory well?" "I know this sector better than anyone----" "How is that?" "Because I'm the gravedigger of the Regiment!" PRISONER CHATTER, PEPPER HILL. _December_ 15, 1916. Night falls--victorious day--success along the whole line----I go by foot along the road from Louvemont, something I have not done since the first days of the battle of Verdun. The German prisoners and wounded, in their field-gray uniforms, dirty with mud, descend the hill in little groups, their arms raised. Some of them approach our men, saying: "War finished--War finished!" "I believe you're telling tales," was the reply of a _poilu_. BRAS, PEPPER HILL. _December_ 16, 1916. I assisted yesterday the second attacking party, at Pepper Hill. I have just passed the night at Froideterre,[28] which has been well named--At dawn the sound of the battle diminished. On leaving the shelter where I had been installed, I saw, a few steps away, an airplane, its tail in the air, that I had noticed the night before---- At Brigade Headquarters I was asked to interrogate two young German officers who had been captured on the backbone of Pepper Hill---- I go back to Bras over the same route that I came. The ruins of the village are flooded with mud. For a whole year, day in and day out, I was once at Bras, but then it was a pretty village with inhabitants---- To-day there is nothing more than ruins, mud and dead bodies----