We were going to Troyes. So at least we were told. From Troyes, we were evidently to proceed straight to Mulhouse, to occupy and defend that captured town. This also we were told. The prospect delighted me. To go to Alsace and remain there was certainly not so glorious as to have won our way there; but, at the same time, the prospect was not one to be despised. We defiled through the town: roadways echoing, handkerchiefs waving, some laughter, some tears. A mistake in the route cost us a few additional miles of measured tramping. Gradually the pace grew easier, for the oldest reservists, still plump, perspired freely, making no complaint, however. We saw some of our wounded before the doorway of a large grey building. They held out at arm's length for our inspection spiked helmets and little round forage caps with red bands on a khaki ground. "We also!" we cried. "We are going there, my friends!" A young workgirl, fair and buxom, smiles upon me, displaying all her teeth. She has a small, well-poised head and inviting, ruddy cheeks. Her smile does me a world of good; for I am going to war; the morrow perhaps will see me in the thick of it! The train, at last. A mere black line of gaping trucks with a few first-class carriages. Entraining is a big affair; the young major, a dark and energetic man, urges his horse from group to group, shouting directions and commands. A constant murmur arises from the onlookers. Why in the name of everything has he given the order for the little tricoloured flags, which a moment since were waving above the marching battalion, to be removed?... Slowly we draw out of the station as the eventide descends. The sunset is sombre, dominated by monstrous clouds of purple and virgin gold. Through the night rolls on the convoy. Our old Captain of the 27th draws off his iron-plated boots and displays his socks, brilliantly yellow and quite new. We stretch ourselves, we groan, we snore. A pointsman, busy with his levers, cries out to us to ask whither we are bound: "Troyes? What a joke! You are on your way to Verdun!..." To believe everything one is told is the first illusion. O sullen silence of night travelling! Our faces grow dull and lifeless in the indistinct light which filters doubtfully through the blue shade. From time to time, perched high up on the embankment, we flash past vague figures silhouetted against the darkened heavens; they are sentries guarding the line. Suddenly long white pencils of light evolve majestically out of the night's blackness, chasing away the shadows. Walls and station lamps announce Verdun. For a further three or four miles we run on. At one o'clock in the morning we find ourselves at Charny. Amid much confusion the sections fall in opposite the doors of the wagons, from which a heavy mist now slowly drifts. And heavy-footed and slowly we set out on the march. _Wednesday, August 26th._