Overcome by fatigue I had begun to get drowsy in spite of the cold and the wetness of my clothes, which stuck to my skin like icy poultices and seemed to suck all the warmth from my body. Suddenly I became aware of footsteps splashing in the gutters by the side of the road. Men were passing by the wagon. I thought that possibly somebody had discovered a barn and was leading them to it. I followed. Sure enough, after a few minutes' walk we came to a house, the black bulk of which rose up suddenly before me, darker than the surrounding darkness. My foot knocked against a ladder. Perhaps it led to a window? I clambered up and found myself in a loft of which the flooring was rotten and gave way under my tread. I clutched the low framework of the roof and advanced cautiously. Some one was already asleep there; I heard his breathing. Stretching myself carefully athwart the beams and pillowing my head on a bundle of wood, I prepared to go to sleep. It was almost hot in the loft. _Saturday, September 19_ We started off again at dawn in a drizzling rain. The road, studded at intervals with the bodies of dead horses, wound through interminable woods of tall beeches from which the rain dripped heavily. Endless enfilades of swamped and deserted trenches stretched away on either side and were finally lost in the undergrowth. Tall, heavy trees had been felled and laid athwart the road, which had sunk beneath their weight. And when they had been dragged into the ditches in order to leave the way clear for the troops, their stout branches had scored deep scratches in the road, which had soon been converted into quagmires by the rain. We passed through Pierrefonds, where, beneath the leaden sky, the magnificent outlines of the château rose up amid the verdure darkened by the rain, and then entered the forest of Compiègne, with its lofty beeches standing in colonnades, below which lay long lines of swamped trenches zigzagging between the trees, with here and there a primitive hut made of branches and ferns, and more and more dead horses. The sun, breaking out between two clouds and piercing the leaves, threw emerald-green lights on the wet moss. Among the dark tones the bright trunks of the birches flashed intermittently. * * * * * Compiègne! The town, occupied by the enemy for a few days only, did not appear to have suffered very much. Gun-fire was audible from far off, to the north-east. We crossed the Oise and rejoined our batteries at Venette, an outlying suburb. In the large hall of a farm to which I had gone in search of provisions the farmer's wife, a matron of over fifty summers, was depicting the horrors of the German occupation to four gunners. She broke off as I came in. "Some milk and eggs? You want to buy them? No! I won't sell them, but I'll give you them.... Please wait a moment." And she resumed her story.