It was on August 19th that our company set out from the village of Couture. We crossed the fields to rejoin the Metz road. After we had marched two kilometres along this road, we took shelter in a wood in order to avoid being seen by a German areoplane. After a short hault here, we started off once more towards Fresne-en-Saulnois. We left this village on our left to march upon Auron and Vivier. We found trenches made by the enemy and some dead horses. In the evening we were before Duron and Vivier, the Germans having left these two villages a couple of hours earlier. We, the company “146,” occupied all the exits from the villages. At about half past eight in the evening the company shoulders knapsacks and we go to the outposts before Frémery. We passed a fairly quiet night, a few shots were fired towards midnight, and we thought there was a night attack, but it was only a skirmish between patrols. Next day, August 20th, at three in the morning the captain commands us to extend in skirmishing order, for we had been warned that the enemy is in front of us. In two or three leaps we reach the crest of a little hill in front of us. At this moment we receive a few bullets which oblige us to assume the ofensive. The lieutenant orders us to fire at five hundred yards upon the enemy advancing towards the crest. At this moment our comrade Arnold, the cook, comes from the village of Frémery, the bombardment of which has just begun, he held in his hands two pales of coffee which he brings to his section, although the captain told him to go back. But, he listening only to the commands of his own courage and coolness, succeeds in joining his section which was then engaged with the enemy. On reaching the line he began to distribute the coffee, but hardly had he begun when he was hit near the left eye not seriously, which stopped him for a moment. But this did not hinder him from continuing his round, stopping from time to time to fire his rifle. It was when he had nearly reached the end of the line of skirmishers that he was hit on the right rist. At this moment he was close to the sergeant-major, who was lying at full length in a furrow and who with the aid of his soup spoon was digging a hole for his head; at this moment we had no orders, for most of the non-coms and privates had been killed or wounded.—The sub-lieutenant gives the order to retire to those who are able, but the sergeant-major stoped where he was saying to a man who was near him and who was wounded. “No slackers here” giving him a blow with the flat of his sword.—At this moment, the Germans make their charge and come close up to us, the sergeant-major lifted his arms into the air, crying, “quarter! my wife my child.”—A little while after we were under the guard of some German