I had forgotten, and then everything became vague. I met two men with fixed bayonets in charge of three prisoners. They gave me some red wine and took me along with them. We passed a factory whose broken machinery I saw profiled against the night sky. Then some stretcher-bearers picked me up and carried me to the neighbouring aid post. From there I was sent by ambulance to the divisional dressing station at Mazingarbe, where I passed the night. The building was plunged into complete darkness for fear of being marked down. Our big guns—the 120 long—were firing quite near, and at every round the walls trembled and the window-panes rattled. One could well picture oneself still in the thick of the fight. The noise of musketry seemed to come from the garden, and I still remember clearly the sinister sights that I saw there. Dimly made out in the shadow, the wounded were lying on straw in rows on the ground. One only saw their silhouettes. There were infantrymen, artillerymen and Algerian Light Infantry on whom the white dressings stood out sharply. Amidst the roar of the guns one would hear a long-drawn moan and some groans, cut short at times by incoherent phrases. All of them raved. Officers and men lived through the morning’s battle once again, and brief commands were uttered, infinitely painful to listen to, “March in open order, by the right; stand by the machine-gun,” and so on. As I stretched myself on some straw in the least encumbered corner, I shivered with fever. The next morning we were all sent on to Nœux-les-Mines, and from there we left by train for we knew not where. FOOTNOTES [1] French cavalry were equipped with the carbine, and not with the infantry rifle as in the case of English. [2] Light infantry. [3] On reading the remarkable and charming book which my colleague, Lieutenant Dupont, has published under the title _En Compagne_, I noticed in one chapter such a similarity of phrase that I thought of changing the beginning of this description, so as to avoid the appearance of a plagiarism. I decided, however, not to alter its first form, but to leave intact this page, which was written in the trenches on that very day 24th January, 1915, long before Lieutenant Dupont’s book appeared. [4] These were darts and position-indicating rockets. INDEX A Agadir, 17 Alaire, Captain, killed, 52 Allies, rally of, at Verberie, 79 —— meeting of, 133 Alquier, orders received from, 161 Arneke, 141 Arras, 141 Authée, bivouac near, 36 —— departure from, 36 Ave, French dragoons billeted at, 34 —— French squadron ambushed at, 35 —— French departure from, 35 B Baron, 85, 86 —— Château of, pillaged by Germans, 86 Basteigne, 29, 34 Bavarians, atrocities of, 76, 77 Bazeille, burning of, by Germans, 1870, 17 Beauraing, arrival of French at, 35 —— departure of French from, 35 —— ambush at, 35