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.