“No, but you know. There have been so many orders and counter-orders that one can never be sure. It ought to rain.” “Do you think it will rain?” “Good God! I wish it would. The sooner we finish the performance, the sooner we’ll get to bed.” The colonel’s orderly arrives with the orders: “The Casanova company of machine guns will support the second battalion and will take the designated objective (Hill 707) directly after the third wave.” “The third wave! Hum! That’s not good. The first wave is a promenade, nothing in front. The second goes over then, but the third has all the shells, for it’s right in the barrage.” “And after?” “After?” “Say, you must think you’re in a café at La Cannebière. Perhaps you’d like to order an ice. This is war, you know.” “I see it now.” The distributions are finished at ten o’clock and we move towards our positions behind the second battalion. The men have taken off their belts and all their useless equipment and are in jackets with their tent canvas crosswise. The diluvial rain which has been falling for some days has stopped this evening. The sky is as black as ink and we can’t see a yard in front of us. The paths were already muddy, but now they have disappeared after whole regiments have gone towards the lines without interruption for some hours. When we reach the communication trench it is no longer a trench at all, but a stream of fluid mud, where we sink over our leggings. We have to use our hands to pull out our legs when they get stuck. “Well, _mon vieux_, if we have to go clear to Berlin at this pace, we won’t get there before to-morrow morning!...” It is so dark that we can scarcely see the back of the comrade in front of us. We march in silence, with our hands on the sheaths of the bayonet and our mask case to prevent the metal striking against the sides of the trench. It is after two o’clock when we reach the lines. We take our places as best we can, where we can, and with what we can find. The saps are filled with companies in reserve who will guard the trench while we fight. We find places against the sides of the trench, in chance dugouts gashed in the parapet. We have to be careful to keep our feet underneath us to avoid having our toes crushed in the incessant coming and going to and fro. Rifts in the clouds show us that the sky is clearing. It will be fine. We talk. We weigh optimistically our chances of success. But we have to shout into each other’s ears or we couldn’t hear anything. Above us is the infernal roar of an incessant bombardment. Our guns have fired some days without interruption. And the men never cease praising the heavy artillery. We have never been supported in this way. How far we are from the days in Champagne! We have confidence, absolute confidence.