The lieutenant did not see his way to letting me go forward, although the German fire on our trenches ahead had ceased for some time, and the only sound of guns came from some distance away, in the direction of Craonne. The time passed, however, unnoticed, in the interest of watching the movements of sections passing and repassing the river, in relief or support. Twice a number of wounded were carried past and over the bridge. They were still being collected, or brought down, after the desperate German assaults by night and day that preceded the lull. Three small detachments stopped in passing, moving up to the front. They were all sun-browned, rough-chinned men here. Some had been in the trenches for a week or more, and looked fine-drawn and battered. They were uninterested but confident. Not the sort of gallant gaiety and glitter we are accustomed to associate with the traditional French soldier. That, if it survived the parade times, has given place to a serious intentness upon the one idea, a kind of setting of the teeth to face the issue and force the victory. For the French soldier has more imagination than ours. He has to make up his mind not to picture to himself results and effects which our men simply disregard, as not part of their particular professional concern. The stories they told had necessarily great resemblance. Of hours of crouching under well-directed shell-fire. Of men killed or decapitated beside them, of hairbreadth escapes from shrapnel, of confused night attacks, of the joy of using "Rosalie" upon the hated grey bodies, when at last they got the chance. And, above all, of the continuous, dreadful noise of the guns and of the shells passing. Several were partially deafened or stupefied by the concussion. A few told of comrades who, not from failure of nerve, but from the mere physical, shattering effect of the perpetual roar and scream upon more nervous systems, had had to be sent back for a time from the line. And "spy" stories, as numerous as ingenious. After an hour or so the "brother" had to go up to take his turn in the trenches with others. Our officer had gone off in the interval at a summons; and the sergeant left in charge--we were now firm friends--agreed to let me go up a specified distance for a certain time with the section moving out. We turned to the right round the end of the spur, about thirty of us, ascending diagonally up the side, with a parallel valley receding below us. I had been given directions as to how we were to take advantage of the natural cover, and in places where we should have been more exposed to observation from heights or airmen this cover had been very ingeniously supplemented.