From the direction of Lombaertzyde a sudden thunder resounded, and for the whole of the afternoon the earth was shaken by a bombardment which nothing could describe. To represent it one must think of a furious sea, an express at full speed, lowing of cattle, cat-calls, creakings; one must think of a mixture of all these sounds forming a sort of savage harmony. In the rays of the rising sun Lombaertzyde was crowned with plumes of black and white smoke, made by the bursting shells. Nothing else happened till evening. The night was less monotonous, for, in spite of the pitiless moonlight, one could go out. We looked on with much interest at a raid by two aëroplanes, which marked down an enemy’s trench and a supply convoy with luminous bombs. An instant afterwards the “75’s” hit hard. Towards midnight seven shots were let off from the listening post. I said to myself, “At last, here comes the attack.” I shook up my men, benumbed with cold and sleep; but dead silence again fell. It was freezing hard enough to split stones. Over a surface of several kilomètres the newly formed ice cracked and made one think that an advance was taking place. Little Duval, in a moment of hallucination, fired on the dead bodies, mistaking them for skirmishers. From time to time an imperceptible breeze distinctly brought us the sound of the enemy at work. We heard the blows of mallets, used doubtless to consolidate his wire entanglements. I made our freezing men do the same. M. Chatelin and I walked up and down or made reconnaissances simply for the sake of keeping on the move. On the plain I stumbled on the body of a dragoon between two frozen pools. His head was wrapped up in hay, but he was frozen so hard that we could not move him. I tried to lift him by his belt, but it broke in my hands. Two cats, a white one and an Angora, seemed annoyed at being deranged. Oh, the horror of it! Décatoire had his feet frost-bitten and was unable to walk. M. Chatelin and I returned to the trench, and, huddled up one against the other, we passed the remaining hours of that trying night in shivering. At five o’clock the 5th Chasseurs relieved us. * * * * * Long weeks followed, during which the cavalry, become useless on account of the time of year and the novel trench warfare, remained inactive far from the front in muddy rest-camps. Officers and men were sent by turns into the trenches for eight or ten days at a time, being taken there in motor omnibuses.