"It is a bit better here than in the Haumont Wood, what?" "Rather!" "Better even than the barn at Louvemont, don't you think?" "Naturally!... But say, old man, don't you think we had better go to sleep?" Two minutes later and Porchon is snoring. But no longer is there sleep for me. Scenes and memories have been evoked and flit across my mind to keep me constantly wakeful. What devil of mischief prompted the idiot to mention those things? He has set the machine working and now there is no stopping it! And so in memory I live again through bad days, nightmare days--the _réveil_ in the furious, stinging rain; the arrival at Louvemont, that indescribable village little better than a sewer. I had gone over to the quarters of the adjoining section because before their barn a little chimney-piece had been erected with some paving stones. There had been a fire of flaming logs, hissing and spluttering. We had stripped ourselves to the waist to let the grateful warmth of the flames play on our chests and backs and shoulders. Sitting on a bundle of straw we had found an old, white-bearded soldier, dreaming. I had gone up to him and said: "Hallo, M----! So you are better! Beginning to feel alive once again, eh?" "Oh, yes, Lieutenant. But it has been a hard pull, a very hard pull!..." And he had repeated in a low voice, as though experiencing again hardships still recent: "Very hard!" Poor old man! He had gone through the campaign of '70 as a volunteer, and since those days had lived outside France. For thirty years, I believe, he acted as a notary in California, until the very day, in fact, which had brought this war upon us. Then, when France was once more attacked and menaced, he had flung everything aside and had come back to shoulder his rifle. He had described himself as being robust, smart and well able to endure any hardships. They had accepted his statement and sent him up to face the Boches with the first batch of reinforcements. He had joined up with us in the woods at the very moment we were setting out for those nightmarish advance posts; those two terrible succeeding days were the first of his service. Poor old man!--and he was sixty-four years of age! The following night Pannechon had made me up a deep and fragrant bed of hay, just before I set out for mess. Dinner ended, I returned to the barn, humming softly to myself, and enjoying in anticipation a night of warmth and slumber. I entered the barn and stumbled in the dark. Good, here's the ladder!... One, two, three steps--the bed should be here! Groping about, I felt my revolver case and linen bag; then my hands encountered not the hay bed, soft and rounded, but a firm, extended and rather rough surface. What in the name of the mysteries could this be? A voice, muffled by the hay, enlightened me with disconcerting abruptness: "Eh, my friend! when you have quite finished exploring my back, perhaps you will tell me what it is you want!"