"He saved my life yesterday.... I was going to the outposts where there had been some fighting and where I had heard that I was wanted. I was quite alone, and suddenly I met a patrol of Uhlans. They fired at me, but missed. I was angry at not being able to go where I wanted, and as I wheeled round I let them have a revolver shot. As a priest I ought not to have done that, ought I? But I couldn't help it. I saw one topple over. The others pursued me, but my horse went like the wind, and after a time they gave up the chase. So I turned round again and followed them. I found the man I had shot. He didn't understand a word of French. I was able to give him absolution before he died, but it was a near shave!" * * * * * Night was falling when we rejoined the battery. It was raining, and we wondered whether we should again have to sleep in the mud. I found my comrades of the first gun--Hutin, Millon, and Déprez--covered with mire and black with powder, their faces gaunt with weariness. "Hallo!" "Ah, Lintier!" said Hutin. "We've had a bad time of it to-day! I really don't know how it is we are still here!... I don't know.... Ask Millon...." Millon nodded his head. He seemed at the end of his strength. "Gratien is dead." "Oh!" "Killed as he was mounting his horse ... a small splinter in the spine. He didn't move.... A shell came right through the shield of the third gun without bursting.... And another fell not two yards off our trench!" "Ah! That one did burst. We were badly shaken.... My hair and beard were singed." "No one wounded?" "No one in the battery, except Gratien, who was killed.... Yes, though! Pelletier got his forehead grazed by a splinter. Come and have a look at the ammunition wagon--it's like a nutmeg-grater. It began to smoke at one time. Suppose it had blown up!... It was full ... thirty-six high-explosive shells!..." It was now quite dark, so we lit the hurricane lamps. Somebody called out: "Eleventh, to your billets!" "Right!" "First gun ... fifth gun...." "Fifth!" "To your billets, eleventh!" We followed a man carrying a hurricane lamp, and found that we had to share our billets with some foot-soldiers from the south whose accent, so to speak, smelt of garlic. The men of the firing battery let themselves fall in the straw like foundered horses, and, after having made sure of a warm place, I sallied out with a couple of comrades of the first line in order to find something to eat and drink. The narrow, badly paved streets were alive with the shadowy forms of men jostling each other, the indistinct coming and going of horsemen and wagons, the noise of many feet plodding through the mud, and the confused sound of voices and respiration. A little café, near which the pavement had been broken up by a shell in the afternoon, was crowded with foot-soldiers, A.S.C. men, and Zouaves.