Early on the appointed day we were ready, and closely reviewed each other’s equipment. Not a stripe was to be seen; our knapsacks were crammed full, as if for a journey of several days. Everything went off as well as could be wished. We set off, escorted to the gates by the men of our hut, who were astonished and amused. “The N.C.O.’s going on fatigue!” It was the first of May. The day gave promise of being glorious. In lines of four, between two rows of sentinels, we left the camp. The march was slow, desperately slow; but the ordinary workers knew that the few minutes gained on the way there were so many minutes taken from work, so we were obliged to restrain our impatient steps. Oh that stirring sound of marching feet on the firm high road! What recollections it called up, what marches in the company of friends, alas, no longer living! What joyful stages towards the enemy whom we wished to drive back! What hours of weariness also, when, our shoulders bruised and bowed by the weight of our knapsacks, we were obliged to go on, day and night, fleeing before the invader! The high road! At last for the first time for long months we were marching on firm ground. No longer did our feet sink into the soft sand of the camp. Our walk was lighter; it was as if chains had fallen from us. And the road which stretched in front gave us the illusion of liberty. The hedges were clothed in tender green, the young crops were springing up in the fields, the sky was an intense blue; hidden in the trees, the birds poured out their souls in song. This joy, this feeling of liberty, quickly takes possession of us. The smile of a rosy-cheeked, fair-haired child, who walks barefooted beside the “Franzosen,” proud and happy to hold one of them by the hand, the voice of a young girl singing, the sight of an inn shining cleanly with its red tiles and green shutters, strike a gay note; the cool refreshing air, the bird that suddenly rises and flies away, the calf that starts on a mad race across the field, all these things make us feel free, and seem to us like a hymn of gratitude to the Creator in which unconsciously we take part, till the moment when our joy, having reached its height, is brusquely turned into grief and our happiness is dispersed, leaving us with our sadness. But let us drive away gloomy thoughts--the day is made for joy. Now see the Frenchmen outrival each other in making fun of a Boche who passes, of an absent-minded sentinel who stumbles, of a “Mädchen” who looks at us with a broad, sheepish smile, and then suddenly frightened casts her eyes on the ground between her dusty shoes. Then it is a joke on an exceedingly stout Teuton woman, a snatch of a song, a call to a cock in its own language, or to a duck, a cow or a pig seen on the way. It is the boisterousness of schoolboys at liberty, of a contagious exuberance of spirits. Life sparkles and even takes possession of our heavy guards themselves, whom these demonstrations amuse.