"Stop your silly tales!" I exclaim. "You know nothing of what is going to happen, and yet here you are growling already! Stop it!" They hold their tongues and march wearily along behind me. I can feel their weariness even more keenly than my own. We are hungry and chronically in need of sleep. Each time we stop for a moment, men throw themselves down heavily beside the ditches. We pass through Mouilly and turn to the right along a road hitherto unknown. There is a stream, dark forms bending over the water, the squelching of feet in the mud. The road rises and buries itself in the heart of some gloomy woods, but we come to a halt at the edge of them. There we wait for daylight, acting as reserve to the advance post. I have to make certain that our connection with a company of the --th is established. I am to find certain elements of it further along the road. Two men go out, to return only after a long interval. They have seen no one at all, and are quite confident there is no one before us. Orders countermanded. Fall in! We go back towards Mouilly. One suspects lights behind the closed shutters. I knock at a door, and when it opens I learn that the whole company which should have been out at the advance post is there in the village! Where on earth is the phenomenon who has command of this medley? From house to house I go, to find him at last consuming a roast chicken, to which he invites me without ceremony. I receive the greatest shock of my life to find that it is L----. "Hallo, old man! You can certainly boast of your cuisine, but is this what you call the advance posts?" The meeting delights me, for L---- is another of my friends of the days before the war, a jovial rascal, who "cares nothing for nobody" and proves it. The information I give him--not a single guard at the approaches to the village, not a patrol on the road, not even a sentinel--leaves him thoughtful for at least two seconds. He says simply: "I gave the orders. I suppose they weren't carried out. I must go out and see about it in a minute." And forthwith he again sets to on the bird, happy, comfortable and serene. He really is a good fellow, but what a strange commander for a company!