All this time the crackling of rifles disturbs the night's stillness; the short snappy reports emanating close at hand, the swift whistling of German bullets from the distance. Nor did the rain cease to fall, plastering our great-coats on to our backs, streaming in rivulets from the peaks of our caps. The wind, however, had ceased to moan. It blew gently now as though appeased, but cold and foxy. The day was approaching and never was the light of day so longed for. I saw once more the battlefield of Sommaisne, bathed in sunlight, clear in outline, rich in colour. And all that night we had been as blind men, fighting gropingly. I shrank from the thought of death in that icy mud, or in those puddles of water into which one stumbled.... How strange everything is. During a brief calm, music, strange, sharp, but rhythmic rings out. That must be the German bugles taking up their message and approaching nearer and nearer all along their lines. I turned to my Boche and asked: "What is that?" He bends his head, places his hand behind his ear to listen and replies: "Halt!" Truly enough the firing begins to die away little by little. A few more violent outbursts succeed, and then there is silence, except for stray shots here and there, which echo with curious loudness in the motionless, cold air. The stillness that follows seems almost menacing. It falls over the scene of battle like an immense mantle--it is a portentous silence, as though willed by some mysterious powers of evil: pregnant has the night been with human anguish and suffering. The advent of the wan day does not lighten our spirits; a faint luminance, whitened and cloud-flecked, appears above the horizon, moving slowly towards the zenith. Storm battalions move languidly across the pale sky. The day is false to its season, presaging as it does, and so long in advance, the coming of winter. It is like one of those cold days which invariably arrive inopportunely to shatter the illusion of spring, just when one has commenced to delight in the new year's rush of life. Not for a moment does the rain cease; steadily and stubbornly it falls now, swamping us and penetrating our clothing. One of the Germans remarks to me in a tone of familiarity: "I am freezing!" With hands in his pockets, elbows pressed close to his sides and shoulders hunched up, he is shivering while lounging at ease. The minutes drag slowly by. At daybreak the Colonel appears, his cavalry cloak stiff and heavy with mud. About a dozen prisoners are brought before him. I bring mine up also. The electrician will not leave my side, but clings to me desperately in a renewed access of terror, haunted probably by a vision of himself back to a wall facing a dozen levelled rifles, ready at word of command to place a dozen bullets through him.