"Well-meaning enough, I grant you. You can always expect that. But it is true I am rather worried. You see, the new contingents seem to be comprised of nothing but non-coms., sergeants and corporals. What's the good of them? However hard you try, you can't be everywhere at the same time. Of course, while you are looking after your right, the left, unsupported, gives way.... I am sorry indeed Roux has been sent to hospital!" "What! The Adjutant in hospital?" "Yes! The day before yesterday. He'll be out of harness for some time. A good section leader lost!" Two cannon shots, thundering out almost simultaneously, impel us to look up quickly. Those shells were not 75's or 105's. And where are the guns? They seemed to be under our very noses, yet they are not to be seen. Thirty yards away some gunners are coming and going, busying themselves with some business whose nature it is difficult to grasp at a glance. We approach them and, suddenly, almost at our feet, we see the guns, admirably hidden beneath a pile of brushwood, with a palisade of branches all round. An artificial thicket is the result, capable of deceiving the eye ten paces away. "Oh, that's something like!" I exclaim. "It is an artistic triumph. I am going to congratulate the gunners." The moment, however, I get near the guns, and slightly in front of them, a deafening, stunning explosion takes place. The rush of air almost knocks me over; my head seems to have been shattered and my ears tingle painfully. A gunner laughingly calls out to me: "Hallo, Lieutenant! Have you heard our 90's yet?" So these are the 90's! One of my men growls bitterly: "What idiocy! To put these mechanics here with their two machines simply to make a noise! They would have something better to think about than making us jump if they had to go and do some fighting!" We are in the heart of the wood. We scale a slope and descend the further side. Everyone is silent, a prey to that instinctive feeling which proximity to the Boches causes. It can hardly be described as uneasiness; rather is it a complex sensation which compels action even before the impulse behind it has formed in the mind. One instinctively walks on tiptoe, holds one's bayonet to prevent it rattling, suppresses a cough. It is as if someone had said: "Be careful! I can smell the Germans!" There are, of course, some men who do not feel this sensation as keenly as others, but the soldier who is a complete stranger to it is a rarity; time only quickens it, and with some it is an unfailing indication of the enemy's presence.