We reached the orchard above the great quarry, and an outlying picket warned us that the path was dangerous. The commander did not even hear him and continued to walk on the road from Herbècourt, bordered by apple trees in blossom. “Ta-co!” A German bullet tore through the night, and a broken branch with its white petals fell at our feet. He picked it up and looked at it a long time; plucked a blossom and put it in his pocket, “Even the flowers!” He said nothing more that evening. We went through the front lines of the sector until late at night, stopping at the loopholes to observe the enemy’s position and questioning the sentries. We got back to Froissy at three o’clock in the morning, and at six he went to the station at Guillaucourt and left on his leave. * * * * * When he got back, the attack, they said, was near; they were preparing for it seriously. He did not give up attending to the slightest details of the battalion. He showed a paternal interest in his men, knew the men of all ranks by their names, and stopped those he met and talked to them familiarly. The battalion followed the deep path to the entrance of the “120 long” to get back to its positions. A wooden bridge had been constructed here by the artillery to get their guns across. This was useless now and made the road so narrow that the column had to dress back and form by twos. This long manœuvre compelled the men to mark time in one spot. There is nothing especially disagreeable about marking time for we have seen many other stops for less reasons, but this evening the Boche artillery had information of the arrival of the attacking regiment in the lines and was shelling heavily all possible ways of access. A single “77” falling into this crowd of men would make a hecatomb. The commander was marching at the head of the column followed by the intelligence officers of the companies. He stopped a moment in front of the bridge encircled by the explosions of the shells. “If a shell would only destroy it!” But as if for spite, they fell all around and missed it. “It must be destroyed.” There was nothing formal about this order, and the task wasn’t easy. He took off his belts, gave his jacket to a man, and with his chest bare the commander stood up on the bridge, propped himself on the timbers of the floor, and began to tear them up. Ten men imitated him of their own accord. They finished tearing it down amidst a storm of shells which raged about, and in the black smoke of the explosions in which they disappeared for minutes at a time. In a quarter of an hour the way was clear; all that was left was the two laterals which were planted in the walls of the covered path. The battalion was engulfed in the whirlpool and passed without loss. The commander stood on the pile of materials and watched the men file past. He was the last one over. When we reached the line, he began to walk up and down incessantly.