"I do know at least a little about the business," answered the Adjutant with melancholy. "If I could only scotch one or two of them to cure them I would be content. Ping! Pang! do you hear it, there's my brother idiot recommenced! Ah, well, let it pass. Peace until to-night, anyhow! I am going to crawl into my straw again." A shell bursting in the clearing heralds my return to the little shelter. The Quartermaster calls out from the interior: "At least, Lieutenant, no one can say you don't announce yourself! Something like a gong that!" He turns his back to a veritable volley of shells which falls into the open space. The fracas is terrific, fragments of metal fly in all directions before the opening to the shelter with a remarkably unpleasant "frrt." "Oh! Oh!" cries Porchon. "Those are 105's. They are serving us well!" "If they continue," jokes the Quartermaster, "they are going to demolish our little house. This roof is only proof against 77's. Look out!" Yet another avalanche behind us. A volley of fragments strikes the branches sharply, followed immediately by an immense creaking and cracking, a violent agitation of high branches, and the reverberating crash of a tree falling. We are about to be called upon to endure a scientifically regulated bombardment. The men are not pleased. I put my head outside to see them lying upon the moss, scattered in widely-separated groups of two or three. They all have their kit on their back and await unmoved the end of this sprinkling. The shells in their fury shatter the undergrowth, laying bare the black soil beneath. They create an ear-splitting din, flying across the clearing, now growing distant, now returning to burst directly over our heads, tearing down entire trees, hurling roots into the air, scattering the thicket to the four winds. But they strike blindly and unseeing like maddened, unintelligent brutes; their fury, which should be terrible, becomes simply grotesque, a mere impotent frenzy. When the inferno about us dies down a little, one can hear the shrapnel mewing over the first line of our section. And when I remember the Adjutant and his extravagant precautions, I feel an almost irresistible desire to laugh. The moment comes when, the last shell having sent its leaden charge over us, complete silence again falls over the woods. There follow several seconds of inaction, during which one becomes conscious of muscles still instinctively shrinking, of the throbbing of the blood in the arteries. Then here and there heads pop up. Soon the men are sitting up ridding themselves anew of their equipment, rising to their feet, and stretching themselves. That little interlude is ended!