We were ordered to assemble on the Place at daybreak, and at daybreak we were there. The clear sky is splendidly luminous. “Good weather for aeroplanes,” said someone. Indeed it was good weather for aeroplanes, for there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and no mist on the ground. A reconnaissance in such weather should be easy. The Boche aviators are early birds. One sees them but rarely during the daytime, when ours mount guard on the lines, but their specialty is getting up early in the morning. We hear them flying over our cantonments long before daybreak, at the first rays of dawn, and see them returning rapidly to shelter as soon as the light becomes clearer and it becomes easier to fire our cannon and machine guns. Presently, as I am giving a final inspection to the material we are to turn in, I meet Sergeant Lace in the yard of the sawmill. “Oh, but you’re an early bird to-day.” “I’ve just been ordered to find a good place to fire on aeroplanes and take up my position there at once. There’s going to be a section there each day. Mine starts.” “Have you found your emplacement?” “Not yet. But that’s not hard to find. Just a hole or a sloping place, so that we can stretch out on our backs.” “I know just the place for you. The hole of a ‘320’ at the entrance of the village on the left, near the poplars. You’ll see it right up against the fence which borders the road from Caix.” “Wonderful. I’ll take up my position there. It must have been dug expressly for me.” A half hour later the cavalry of the three machine-gun companies of the regiment assembled in front of the church. Cavalry!... My good comrade, Roudon, a sergeant-major in the Hussars, who is now with the first company of machine guns in a position like mine, becomes furiously angry every time he hears that word “cavalry.” “Cavalry! Cavalry!” he roars. “You ought to say an assery, a mulery. Just look at them. Not one in ten stands up on his feet. And the riders! There isn’t one who could ride a horse. They’re afraid!”