A continuous and indefinable sound, like the gurgle of a bottle being emptied.... It is Jouin in his death agony, which lasts fully a quarter of an hour. Parvis holds his friend's hand, watches his face pale and his features become rigid. He seems not to hear the bullets whistling about his ears. At last he leaps into the trench, remarking-- "He is dead." Then, with a shrug of the shoulders, he adds-- "His own fault, idiot as he was!" Parvis does not understand the meaning of a funeral oration. A straggler comes creeping up through the beetroots. "A little more quickly!" exclaims the lieutenant. "Do you want me to come and fetch you?" The man makes a sign that he is utterly exhausted. "Are you wounded?" He shakes his head, indicating that he is not. Reymond looks at him. "Why! It's Verrier! Poor old fellow!" It is indeed Verrier, whose one thought has been all along to join his friends. His strength, however, betrays him, and he lies there flat on the ground. The lieutenant understands-- "You'd better return, Verrier. I must send you back to the grotto." A voice answers, as though from a distance-- "Ah! Thanks! Thanks!" And he quietly returns, exposed to the enemy's fire all the way. I look back after him, and when he makes too long a pause, I remark-- "It's all over. Verrier's dead." I am mistaken, however, for he soon resumes his crawl. Finally he disappears. What time is it? Half-past one. How slowly the hours pass! Two sections of the company are stopped in the open, close to our trench, by deliberately aimed infantry firing. A lieutenant makes a sign to Sergeant Chaboy, who comes up-- "Take your half-section and bear away to the right of the sections now in action. When you are on a level with them, open fire and hang on to the ground you take." Another crawl through the beetroots. A fine sport. Without the loss of a man, Chaboy deploys his two squadrons. Some fire whilst others are digging holes. There is only one spade for each squadron, but we scratch away with knives and hands. Very soon we have before us a pile of earth sufficiently high to stop the bullets. The sergeant sends Jacquard to inform the lieutenant that his orders have been executed. We see Jacquard trot away on all-fours with such agility that, though it is no time for jesting, we cannot refrain from poking fun at him. "He runs like a rat," says Varlet. "Or, rather, like a tatou" (an armadillo). The expression catches on at once. Jacquard returns at a speedy run. His eyes shine, and his complexion is heightened. Before flattening himself on the ground he watches the shells burst, and exclaims in triumph-- "Our projectiles are falling right in the German trenches!" "Bravo, rat-tatou." (A _ratatouille_ is a stew of meat and vegetables.)