An orderly condescended to move a few steps and point out to me at the end of the street to the right the billets of the quartermaster of the second company of machine guns. There was a court—a sewer, as a matter of fact—which was completely filled by a pool of filth which left only a narrow passage of a foot or two by each wall. In a corner was a tangle of barrels, farm implements, and broken boxes, and on that a mass of wet straw, manure, snow, and mud. At the farther end of the court was a small door with glass panels—with a glass panel—for only one remained. The spaces were conveniently filled by thick layers of the _Petit Parisien_, _Matin_, _Le Journal_, _Echo de Paris_, the great dailies which arrived intermittently at Proyart. I went in. Kiki wanted to go in, too, but the door was low and he was carrying his complete pack. Inside was a ruined kitchen. The chimney still remained, and there was a large table made of a door stretched on two barrels, which took up the middle of the room. In each corner, against the walls, were improvised beds, straw mattresses, and heaps of clothes under which I surmised there were bodies. “The door, nom de Dieu!” shouted a voice. In front of the chimney was a man struggling desperately with a fire. The watersoaked wood refused to burn, and the man flooded it with shoe grease, which, when it melted, threw out jets of yellow flame and filled the room with a pungent odor and smoke. “The door, the door! What did he tell you!” cried in different tones voices which came from the heaps of covers. It was true that a breath of cold air and a swirl of snow had rushed into the smoky dark hall when I came in. I shut the door and asked, “Is this the second company of machine guns?” “What of it? What do you want of the second machine guns? It’s here. And after that what do you want? Papers, again? Zut! They have no idea of bothering people at this hour. Leave them on the table and come back in half an hour.” This diatribe emanated from a pile thicker than the rest, in the chimney corner. At this obsession of papers, of lists to be signed, I guessed he was a sergeant or a quartermaster, and I kept on: “Don’t worry. There are no papers. I am the mounted intelligence officer attached to this company.” “M ...!” shouted several voices in the four corners of the room, while I watched arms and muffled heads rise up. “_Mince!_ So we have a mounted officer now! Wonderful! They’re certainly fitting us out in style. What won’t they do next? Then, that’s all right, _vieux_. Come on in and let us see you. And you have a horse? Where is your horse? Bring him in; make him come. It must be cold out in the court.” The first burst of curiosity soon passed, the torrent of words exhausted itself, and the forms which had stirred a moment ago quieted down anew. A more peremptory voice now started in shouting invectives at the orderly who was still struggling with the rebellious wood.