We slide along on elbows, stomach and knees like snakes, which puts our clothes to a severe test. And we let ourselves fall head first into the “Servian” trench, just over the lieutenant’s sap, who cannot believe his eyes when he sees us fall as from the moon. “Where did you come from?” “We’ve been taking a walk in the La Vache woods. Does that mean anything to you?” “How did you come?” “By a short cut!... a fine short cut, you know. I recommend it to you!” Sub-Lieutenant Delpos was making his rounds in the sector and was told of the exploit. He is nervous and in a murderous humor, for he spent a sleepless night on a special mission between the lines. So Morin caught it a hundred times worse than he deserved. Sub-Lieutenant Delpos’s moments of ill humor are, like some storms, violent but quickly over. The adventure ended with an excellent cup of coffee, flavored with XXX brandy, which he offers us in his sap, sumptuously furnished with every possible comfort, twelve yards underground. Towards midnight I went down to Éclusier through an English observation trench. It is only accessible at night. In the daytime a Boche machine gun is placed on the other side of the Somme and enfilades it. It is suicide to venture there. Cut out of the rock in the hillside, its ridges are short and steep. It is a bad trench, but an important short cut.... Saux should be waiting for me with the horses in a ruined house behind the church. Éclusier is a hamlet on the left side of the canal. There is a single street with ragged houses on each side, but they are not badly ruined. The church, protected by a bend in the cliff, still has its steeple intact through some prodigy of equilibrium, although the roof has fallen in. At the side, in what was once the presbytery, is the regimental dressing station. Lights come and go. Men are coming back from fatigue duty, searching for their dugouts by feeling for them. Through the air-holes, from which come odors of cooking, one can see lighted cellars. I make my way by the aid of my electric lamp through this labyrinth which was once a street, and I find the house. I guess at it, rather, from the pawing of the horses, which are nervous and are pounding on the flagstones. It is an old grocery and its sign still reads: “Fine Wines—Desserts—Choice Preserves.” A ragged green cart cover takes the place of the door. I raise it. A gust of foul air hits me in the face, and I stop on the threshold gasping for breath. I see Saux asleep, his head on my saddle, and rolled up in horse blankets. Burette is asleep beside him. Burette, the quartermaster, spent three months in the heavy artillery. He is an enthusiast on horses, but his equestrian ability is far from equaling his love for it. His style produces many falls, but they don’t discourage him. I wake up Saux, who gets up dizzily. Is he half drunk, I ask myself. That’s not like him at all. “Look, Saux, what’s the matter?”