An immense valley lies extended below us. At the foot of the hill are deeply shadowed woods interspersed with luminous lakes of well-mellowed crops. To the right, a road takes an abrupt turn and leads through an avenue of trees; in the foreground, a second road at right angles to the first, cuts an ugly gash through the dappled richness of the fields. At the bottom of the valley, the white walls of the village of Dannevoux peeps forth between the green leaves. And still further away, over towards the Meuse, invisible from this spot, is a chain of blue hills. Until evening, the men dig with zest. From afar off sounds the muffled rumble of a violent cannonade. We take our lunch by the roadside, attacking a charred fowl with teeth and fingers, and drinking muddy wine to the last dregs. To-night, as yesterday, I gratefully retire with my farmer; but on this occasion his snores haunt me, and he wakes me every time he moves. _Saturday, August 29th._ The men, with shirts opened and their skins wet with perspiration, complete their trenches beneath a searching and pitiless sun. Above the rumbling of distant artillery, we hear the detonations, still muffled and deadened, of nearer batteries. By holding my hand to my ear, I can distinguish soft whistlings which terminate in wailing explosions. Shrapnel evidently, the smoke of which is slowly dissipated in the calm air. We retain our billets that night also, but not many of us sleep; for the German shells are bursting now hardly a mile away from the village; the windows shake and tremble under the stress of the formidable explosions. _Sunday, August 30th._ _Bois de Septsarges._ Hardy undergrowth thrusting forth roots shoots amid the shadows of the great forest. Great splashes of light are on the moss; living, quivering sun-rays pierce the warm gloom; the acrid odour of fermentation, increased by the sun, is oppressive. It strikes one forcibly, that sun! I recline in the shelter of a tree, moving only as the shade moves. P----, a second-lieutenant of the 8th, lies weltering beside me. He is writing in pencil a long letter to his wife; he chats about her and his little girl, who is five months old. I pay him all the attention I possibly can, but I fear I do not understand much of what he says: his voice comes to me like a monotonous purring--which is, as it were, punctuated by the throbbing of the blood in my temples and fingers. And so I fall asleep. A terrific explosion wakes me with a start. Three more successive detonations shatter the air, and above my head I hear the flight of shells--a light rustling, a rapid rushing, which one can with some difficulty follow with the ear, growing more and more distant until it terminates finally in the explosion. "Those are 120 mm. guns," P---- remarks to me.