It was still night when we broke up the camp. After a whole day solely spent in eating and sleeping, we should have felt much refreshed had we not been tortured with diarrhoea. The Medical Officer had no more bismuth or paregoric elixir left, and we had no choice but to chew blackthorn bark. The horses were even more exhausted than the men. Many had been slightly injured in the engagements on Monday and Tuesday, and their wounds were suppurating. No one seemed to trouble about them, and that was not the worst, for some of them had to suffer the stupid remedies applied by the ignorant drivers. I saw one man urinate on his horse's pastern, which had been cut by a shell splinter. Nearly all the animals were lame as the result of kicks received at night-time, when the worn-out stable-pickets fall asleep. Seldom taken out of the traces and hardly ever unharnessed, the straps, cruppers, and especially the crupper-loops had made large sores on them which were covered all day long with flies. And, besides all this, the poor beasts, like the men, were weakened by incessant diarrhoea. All the morning we marched on, through Givry-en-Argonne, Sommeilles, Nettancourt, and Brabant, the milestones being at first marked "Meuse" and then "Marne." The dust half veiled the austere, regular hills of the beautiful country and the magnificent reaches of the forest of Argonne sloping away to the east. About noon we reached Revigny-aux-Vaux, a pretty little white-walled town surrounded by fields and pasture-lands, where we parked our guns on the bank of the Ornain, close to the station. As we were leading the horses down to the river a man dressed like an artisan, who was sitting by the side of the road, accosted me: "Where are you gunners from?" "From the Hauts-de-Meuse, over by Dun and Stenay. We've been replaced there by fresh troops." "Replaced?" "Yes--they say by the 6th Army Corps." "Pooh, that's all rot!... You've just turned tail!... Yes ... simply that!... Do you know where the Prussians are?" he added, getting up. I felt chilled by a sudden fear. Misery was plainly written on the fellow's bony, emaciated face. When sitting he had not seemed nearly so tall or thin. He stretched out a long arm, and with a shaking hand pointed to the north-west. "They're just outside Châlons, the Prussians!" I shrugged my shoulders. "You don't believe me? Well, I've come from Châlons--an aeroplane dropped a bomb on the station just as my train left. And the Prussians have got to other places as well, if you want to know. They are at Compiègne! Do you hear?... At Compiègne ... it's certain. You've only got to ask ... anybody here will tell you. They've got to Compiègne and they took La Fère as they passed." I began to tremble, everything seemed to be turning round me, and for a moment I thought I should fall. Instinctively I pressed my knees into my horse's sides and returned slowly to the camp with a haggard face and an aching heart.