Raincy was only five miles distant, as the crow flies. Yes, but the French had made a sortie on the 21st, they had pushed back our lines, and they now held Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche between Raincy and Noisy-le-Grand. I should have to make a circuit; my five miles became ten. I did not like the prospect at all. I liked it still less when the Colonel added: "You must be careful. More than one German soldier has of late been killed upon that road. There are _francs-tireurs_ about. And you _must_ reach Raincy." It was a verbal message which he gave me, and I was to deliver it in person to the commandant of the battery at Raincy. "There is a horse ready for you at the stables," said the Colonel, and with a nod he turned again to his scrap of paper. I saluted and walked to the door. As my hand was on the knob he called me back. "What do you make of it?" he asked, holding the paper out to me. "It was picked out of the Marne in a sealed wine-bottle." I took the paper, and saw that a single sentence was written upon it in a round and laborious hand with the words misspelt. The meaning of the sentence seemed simple enough. It was apparently a message from a M. Bonnet to his son in the Mobiles at Paris, and it stated that the big black cat had had five kittens. "What do you make of it?" repeated the Colonel. "Why, that M. Bonnet's black cat has kittens," said I. I handed the paper back. The Colonel looked at it again, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. "Well, after all, perhaps it does mean no more than that," said he. But for the Colonel's suspicions I should not have given another thought to that misspelt scrawl. M. Bonnet was probably some little peasant engrossed in domestic affairs, who thought that no message could be more consoling to his son locked up in Paris than this great news about the black cat. [Illustration] The wildest rumours were flying about our camp at that time, as I think will always happen when you have a large body of men living under a great strain of cold and privation and peril. They perplexed the seasoned officers and they were readily swallowed by the youngsters, of whom I was one. Now, this scrap of paper happened to fit in with the rumour which most of all exercised our imaginations. It was known that in spite of all our precautions news was continually leaking into Paris which we did not think it good for the Parisians to have. On that very Christmas Day they already knew that General Faidherbe, at Pont Noyelles, had repulsed a portion of our first army under General Manteuffel. How did they know? We were not satisfied that pigeons and balloons completely explained the mystery. No, we believed that the news passed somewhere through our lines on the south-east of Paris--news in cipher which was passed on and on to a house close to our lines, whence, as occasion served, it was carried into Paris.