A poor little soldier carrying two enormous bags, a great bundle of linen, and some souvenirs in his hands passed just then. He was on his way to the station at Guillaucourt to take the train, for he was going on leave. Rejoicing in his approaching happiness he walked on without paying the slightest attention to this atmosphere where death was hovering. A shot hit him in the back and passed out the other side. I jumped to aid him. He was bathed in blood. In a gentle, caressing, almost timid voice he said to me: “Oh, it’s not painful. I am dying.” And then with his lips, with an expression of kindness and thankfulness which I shall never forget, he murmured, “Yvonne.” ... And his face haloed with blessedness like the religious images of the martyrs, he died. I stood there in ecstasy, transfixed, before that beauty in death, before that strength of love which lights the final hour. How many I have seen die in this way! In their last breaths all had the name of some woman, and their eyes lighted at the name. In the final moment of a life which is going out physical suffering no longer counts. The name of the loved one embodies all the vanishing mirage of the future, the end of a too beautiful dream, the memories of a happy past ... of a happy past, for the bad times are forgotten. Before the quivering body of this poor little soldier, struck down fiercely just as he was going on leave, full of hope, of plans, of dreams, a song on his lips, I forgot the threatening shells. An artilleryman went by on the run and shouted at me: “Get out of that. You’ll get done up.” And I fled. * * * * * Our horses were bivouacked in the courtyard of a sawmill. Not an accident there. I counted them all at a glance. The underground shelter of the men was in the back of the yard, and I went to the air-hole which was stopped up by a piece of sheet-iron which served as a screen against splinters. “Oh, down there! Men of the echelon. All outside. To horse. We must hurry. Come on, hurry up! Your masks, helmets, forward with just the bridle!” One by one they jumped out of their lairs, grimacing as the bright sun struck them full in the face as they came out of the darkness. “Each one two horses, by squads of six.... One hundred yards between each squad. The other men will remain here and mobilize the pack saddles and caissons in the cellar. Take the road to the Caix station ... on the road lined with poplars.... On the gallop ... no straggling.” Some minutes later we were already going out of the village. It was a bad passage, but the only one and the shortest one to reach our destination, but three hundred yards had to be covered on entirely unprotected ground opposite the Boches. Boom! It was the expected. The shells began to fall again. A cloud tinted with red from the tiles of a falling house rises in the air and makes a large spot in the sky back by the church.