No one knows how many bodies are burned to cinders there. A frightful odor assails our nostrils in the smoke which encircles us. A heavy rolling roar, boring through the night like the noise of an express train coming out of a tunnel at high speed, comes from over there, from the black hole where the enemy is. “That’s a terrific fire!” “Look out.” A violent puff, like a heavy blow, knocks us down. The mules rear and draw back. A wagon slides down the bank and falls into the water, taking its animal and driver with it. A shell has burst on the bank opposite and it has torn up by the roots a large poplar which falls across the canal. It is a miracle that it didn’t crush a dozen of us. We run to help the driver. The water is shallow. He holds himself up by the weeds. We pull him out with the aid of several lengths of whip lash, but the mule and the wagon have rolled into the middle of the canal and are lost. The bombardment continues until dawn, but less violently. A few shots, the longest, come near us. The pounding continues on the site of the bridge, obstinately and stubbornly. We are still there at the first rays of dawn. “This is exasperating. We can never get these munitions to the P. C. before daylight.” “Say, Roudon, we have a bridge right in front of us. It will do.” And indeed the large poplar might let us get across the canal. We try it. We leave one man to guard the five wagons, and the rest detach the caissons from their supports, hang them on our shoulders, and one after another we try the chance bridge which bends a little but does not break. Less than fifteen minutes later all the munitions are together on the opposite bank. We reached the P. C. at five o’clock, exhausted without a doubt, but the order has been executed. * * * * * When the artillery officer saw us arriving, he started shouting, “What do you want me to do with that?” Roudon repeated the order he had received the day before. “So you haven’t received the cancellation of the order? You always ought to wait for that. We were relieved last night. Take that stuff back where you got it from.” We carried the caissons back to our wagons by the same way, by the same bridge. Captain D ... was coming along the towpath and saw us arrive. Roudon was furious as he told him about our useless adventure which might have cost us so dear. He listened, laughed, then, coldly: “Bah! that will do the mules good. They’ll get used to marching at night....” CHAPTER XIV THE SONGS OF THE HOMELAND Fontaine-les-Cappy is some hundred yards from the lines. It is a reserve position to which the company was sent the day before in expectation of an attack which may come at any moment. It is raining as it hasn’t stopped raining for weeks. We had floundered in the mud for five hours and were splashed by an endless string of convoys to get here from Villers where the regiment had scarcely begun a few short days of rest.