The plateau, covered as it now is with little huts of straw erected in less than an hour, has all the appearance of a gipsy encampment. The Captain's stick thrust in the ground before one of the larger of these shelters indicates Headquarters. He's pretty certain to be there himself, although there are no signs either of him or of his messengers. Through the rain-mist, indistinct figures occasionally drift across the deserted plain without giving it life. The rain makes them vague, colourless, almost formless. Gradually they draw away into indistinctness, finally to disappear so abruptly as to leave one puzzled and mystified. A second before they were visible; they are no longer so now; and there remains only the drenched plain on which our straw huts appear like strange unhealthy excrescences. Between two showers, Porchon appears before me. He carries in his hand a can in which there is something smoking and steaming. He offers it to me with a plainly self-satisfied grin. "A fine company, mine, what? Everything in stock you can possibly want. Smell that, old man, and fill your nostrils well before drinking it." To my amazement the contents of the can prove to be cocoa, which duly disappears. I can recall nothing since leaving the depot which has tended to create such a sense of comfort within me, such a sense of well-being, security and peace. Can we indeed be at war? Can one reconcile the thought of war with steaming, boiling cocoa? My astonishment lasts longer than the fragrant liquid. "Where did you find that?..." I asked. Without replying he draws from his large pockets a brandy flask, a sausage and two pots of jam from Bar-le-Duc. These jams gave the show away. "I know!" I exclaimed. "You've run across a peddling grocer from Bar?" And while speaking, a vision I had often seen on the roads at home comes to me, and I add with a tone of deep conviction: "He had a little wagon with oilcloth curtains, and there were bells on the horse's collar." Porchon's eyes opening wide told me I had guessed correctly ... (Censored)...: "...." In the evening we go into the village. I stroll slowly towards the barn where my section is billeted. In the square, a group of noisy soldiers is gathered before a house which has nothing in particular to distinguish it from its neighbours. With much pushing and stretching of necks they are contriving to scan a big placard stuck on the wall. Of course, I can't be left out when there's something to be seen, though actuated by nothing but sordid curiosity. The first word that encounters my eyes, however, gives me a violent shock. I can see nothing else but that word, which instantly seizes upon my excited imagination and seems to presage things marvellous, superhuman, incredible. The word is: "Victory!" It sings in my ears, that word. It echoes through all the streets, it bursts on me like a triumphant fanfare.