We meet Hémin, our comrade of the third company of machine guns, at Froissy. He came out at dawn with orders from his commandant and is going back to Morcourt, and we go along together. Going from this bridge to that at Méricourt, the towpath is almost deserted. Hardly anything crosses our path except some English motor-cyclists. Hémin is riding a superb charger, a great long-legged, bright chestnut, who carries his head proudly—a fine beast. Some yards away from the branch from Neuville marines from the gunboats have planted huts along the towpath between the poplars. The regular trot of our horses sounds clearly along the way. A marine hears us and raises the flap of his tent to see us. This frightens Hémin’s horse and he jumps into the canal. Our comrade is unhorsed and disappears under the water. We jump down. But even before we jump two marines have plunged in. Others poke around with poles in the mud from a boat. In an eddy a hand appears, then a head, swollen, bloody, crushed. Hémin got a blow from a shoe full in the face and could not swim. The body is brought on to the bank. A surgeon from the gunboat doubles his efforts in vain. Hémin is dead. * * * * * We buried him in the little cemetery at Méricourt one Sunday morning. It is the ideal cemetery of the poets, hidden in green from every sound. Each grave seems alone in a thicket of lilacs and honeysuckle. No scientific gardening here; no trees butchered by experts; no cultivated flowers; no bombastic marbles. The grass overruns the paths; the simple flowers of the field have blossomed on the graves, thus bringing in every season the natural homage which returning life pays to the dead. Nature is pleased to shut every sound from this field of rest. At the end of a lane, at the foot of a willow, we lay Hémin to rest in his last sleep. The men of the echelon come, the major, a captain, and the officers who knew him particularly well. The intelligence officers of the three companies joined in buying a wreath and came to the services together. Hémin’s captain speaks a few words. It is not the time for a long talk, for a simple touching farewell is sufficient. And before he goes each one throws in the grave the symbolic bit of earth. Sad duty! Before the grave is filled in I drop over him petals of peonies.... Poor fellow! He is not the most unfortunate. He is in that luminous land of day and knows what we are powerless to know. He has finished with our poor human troubles, and on him have fallen the curtains of his last resting place. But those who are left, his wife, his child!... That is where sorrow begins. They don’t know yet, and for a long time they will know nothing and will live in anxiety.