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.