“My dear fellow, this is what happened to me on Thursday morning. It must have been about half-past eight. I am taking a walk with my chums of casemate 23. There is a regular London fog. All at once, at the bottom of the west court, we hear the jabber of Boche. I imagine that it is the disciplinary company breaking stones, as usual, in front of the battery. Durand, however, clambers up the slope. After peering over the edge, he makes signs to us to join him. On the road that runs by the ditch are two sections, standing at ease in columns of fours. Their officer is on horseback, wearing a huge grey cloak. He is making a speech to his men. My attention is riveted by the word _Frankreich_. I scramble a little higher. Stretched at full length, my head just above the edge, among the grass, I listen with all my ears: ‘Get this firmly fixed in your minds,’ says the captain, ‘for we must not fail to learn all we can from these French rascals [_diese Lumpen von Franzosen_]. Let me repeat: they climb into the trees; they install their machine guns among the branches; they wait there in absolute silence. The German scouts have examined the ground only. Our men pass by. Then comes a sound like thunder! We are mowed down from behind by a rain of bullets. Such are the tricks of these monkeys! Well, let us meet ruse by ruse, stratagem by stratagem. Listen carefully. You are at the front. You dig your trench, the admirable German trench. You settle yourself there comfortably. You are invulnerable. Thence, quite at your ease and without danger, you can fire at the French lines. Is this all? No. In advance of your real trench, eighty or a hundred yards away, you hastily dig another trench. You fill it with dummies. It is quite easy—any old rags of clothing will do. These pigs of Frenchmen [_diese Sauleute_, _dieses Schweinvolk_] can fire at this as long as they please. Then, when the assault comes, when they rush into this hole thinking that they’ve got you, you have an admirable target, at short range, and you can quietly exterminate them.’ “Such are the officer’s words. At this moment one of his men asks a question, and I take the opportunity of changing my position, so that I am exposed down to the waist. The captain catches sight of me. After glaring at me for a moment, he demands a rifle, shoulders it, and fires. Nothing happens; the breech is empty. We do not budge. The captain is furious. ‘Give me a cartridge!’ He loads the rifle and shoulders it once more. My comrades and I are about to take cover behind the slope when the shot is fired. It must be a blank cartridge, for we hear no whistle of a bullet. The Boches burst out laughing. Corporal Durand, standing erect with folded arms, gazes at them mockingly. He intends to stay there. ‘My good man,’ I exclaim, ‘hurry up and get down!’ The captain is asking for another cartridge. ‘This time,’ I say, ‘it will probably be a bullet!’