Munitions are distributed around. Only one man wounded in the 24th: a corporal, who was with a patrol that went out just before the alarm. He was surprised by the fusillade when on the point of rejoining his men, who had already returned to the trench. Caught between two fires, he crouched behind a small elevation, and instinctively protected his head with his right arm. This arm received six bullets, French and German alike. The sergeant in command of the patrol goes out into the hail of iron to bring back the wounded man, and returns intact, though his clothes are torn to shreds and his hands are all blood-stained. The corporal's arm is reduced to pulp, and his thigh has also received a ball. The hæmorrhage is stopped as well as circumstances permit. The lieutenant comes round and says-- "Keep your eyes open, the attack will certainly recommence." Has there really been an attack? "They do that sort of thing to prevent our falling asleep," growls one man. The rain has stopped. Each man leans against the trench wall and groups form. We converse in low tones, hiding the light of the pipes in the hollow of the hand, and await events. At midnight a fresh alarm. The fusillade upon Crouy begins again, and in a few seconds is raging along the entire line. The cannon also are firing. The field of beetroots is lit up by fuses. We maintain an uninterrupted fire under the quiet command of Sergeant Chaboy. A few balls ricochet into the trenches and eight men are wounded. After forty-five minutes of furious firing everything again becomes calm. A few more salvos and a final crackling of the _mitrailleuses_, and it is over. Profound silence throughout the rest of the night. We cannot understand it. The company has spent thirty thousand cartridges, perhaps without killing a single German. _Tuesday, 22nd December._ Still in the first line, though in a sector farther away from the enemy. Reymond invites a few friends to inaugurate an exhibition of drawings he has just finished. Into the recesses of the trench walls enormous beetroots are fitted. On the slices of these hard white roots (they resemble in no way the beetroot of the salad-bowl), cut clean through with a chop from a spade, Reymond has sketched, with a violet crayon, some of the heads of the section. Here, with its prominent skull and nose, we have the pessimist Mauventre, who at the faintest distant roar of the cannon sighs-- "Here come the _marmites_! They'll be the death of us all yet, see if they're not!" Reymond has well caught the anxious, troubled features of this intrepid soldier. On another slice of beetroot is the droll silhouette of Corporal Davor, his startled face almost hidden between his shoulders and his arms akimbo. Davor goes about, at night-time, to stir up those on sentry duty. "Keep a watch on the right. Keep a watch on the left." One source of diversion for us is to assume, whenever he passes, the indifferent air of one who ridicules the German attacks.