The village on the right has had to be evacuated by our troops. We must recapture it. The 5th battalion of the regiment is retiring, with standard unfurled, the 18th and 20th companies, in front, forming two successive lines of skirmishers; the 17th and 19th a short distance behind. Anxiously we watch them leave. At six o'clock the battalion returns, having made good the loss. The village has been retaken without a struggle, the Germans, driven back in other quarters, having had to abandon it. We spend the night in a barn at Fosse-Martin. Distribution of provisions and tobacco. We make ourselves some coffee. Close by is an ambulance: broad streams of blood flow from it on to the road. The stretcher-bearers set out with dark lanterns in search of the wounded. One o'clock in the morning, bustle and confusion. A sentry calls out: 'To arms!' Everybody rushes out with fixed bayonets. A false alarm, it was only a fire: a stack of hay aflame about two hundred yards away. The company spends the rest of the night in a neighbouring field of corn, but there is no more sleep for me. On the following day the 23rd is appointed to support the artillery. This time we dig trenches. These we cover over with straw and beetroot leaves; and whenever a hostile aeroplane is signalled we disappear. Everybody laughs and jokes. Games of cards are started down in our holes. We have ravenous appetites. The firing sounds farther away. There is a rumour that the enemy is retiring. We remain where we are until the following afternoon, the 10th September. Everything is perfectly quiet. After a gay lunch we stroll about a little. We notice French aeroplanes returning to headquarters at Brégy. In the evening we are quartered at Bouillancy, abandoned on the 7th by the Germans after a severe struggle: roofs and walls knocked in, windows and blinds broken and torn down. A few houses are still burning, but all the inhabitants have fled. I try to start a conversation with an old fellow and his wife who are obstinately bent on remaining behind and have lived here several days, hiding in their cellar. They are quite stupefied with the recent events, and it is impossible to obtain any information from them. Out in the fields stretcher-bearers are picking up the French and German wounded; in many cases gangrene has set in, as they have been lying there for five days unattended. On the morrow we start again and cross a corner of the battlefield. In the trenches lie piles of German corpses. The French dead--all belonging to the 4th--have their faces covered with a white cloth. Bands of territorials pour petrol over the dead horses and set fire to them; they exhale a pestilential odour.