It is a difficult thing to move a great mass of men through a desolate country by small units and leave them dependent on the country, and it is rather wonderful that they do it so neatly and effect the junctions so well; but the private soldier, who stands for those little black blocks on the military map, has a boy's impatience in him; and a very wise man, if he wishes to keep an army in spirit, will avoid counter-marching as much as he can, for--I cannot tell why--nothing takes the heart out of a man like having to plod over again the very way he has just come. So, when we had come to a very small village in the waste and halted there, finding our guns and drivers already long arrived, we made an end of a dull and meaningless day--very difficult to tell of, because the story is merely a record of fatigue. But in a diary of route everything must be set down faithfully; and so I have set down all this sodden and empty day. That night I sat at a peasant's table and heard my four stable-companions understanding everything, and evidently in their world and at home, although they were conscripts. This turned me silent, and I sat away from the light, looking at the fire and drying myself by its logs. As I heard their laughter I remembered Sussex and the woods above Arun, and I felt myself to be in exile. Then we slept in beds, and the goodwife had our tunics dry by morning, for she also had a son in the service, who was a long way off at Lyons, and was not to return for two years. * * * * * There are days in a long march when a man is made to do too much, and others when he is made to do what seems meaningless, doubling backward on his road, as we had done; there are days when he seems to advance very little; but they are not days of repose, for they are full of halting and doubts and special bits of work. Such a day had come to us with the next dawn. The reason of all these things--I mean, of the over-long marches, of the counter-marches, and of the short days--was the complexity of the only plan by which a great number of men and guns can be taken from one large place to another without confusion by the way--living, as they must do, upon the country, and finding at the end of every march water and hay for the horses, food and some kind of shelter for the men. And this plan, as I have said before, consists (in a European country) in dividing your force, marching by roads more or less parallel, and converging, after some days, on the object of the march. It is evident that in a somewhat desolate region of small and distant hamlets the front will be broader and the columns smaller, but when a large town stands in the line of march, advantage will be taken of it to mass one's men. Such a town was Bar-le-Duc, and it was because our battery was so near to it that this fourth day was a short march of less than eight miles.