What a night that was. During the first few hours Guillaumin and Henriot never ceased chattering below their breath. I wondered that their fatigue had not more hold over them. I only half listened to their conversation which still concerned our victorious march, and the demoralised enemy flying before the sword. Speed, they declared, speed must come before everything else. We must fall upon the Bosches in the rear before they had time to recover themselves. The first excitement occurred towards ten o'clock, a shot in the distance, on our left. Everyone leapt to his feet. Another, and still another.... There was no doubt about it; the sentries' orders had been so explicit; there was to be no firing except in case of danger or surprise. No. 3 picket, next to us, had surely been attacked. Henriot, much agitated, repeated the instructions: at a given signal, we were to extend and fall back on the support.... "It was not our business to put up a fight...." The surprising thing was that the firing was dying down. We remained on the alert, and it was not ten minutes before new shots rang out, on our right this time, at No. 1 picket. "They're crazy!" Henriot fumed. "The lunatics! Now our whole line of outposts will be marked!" He was proud that our lot had kept their heads. But it was somewhat previous. A shot burst out in the wood, a hundred yards away, then a second: three, four, six. We saw a man rush up stammering distractedly: "Someone had come up, he had challenged them, they had not stopped, his comrades had been carried off...." Not very encouraging! However, eight or ten volunteers offered to go and see what the matter was. On the way whom should we meet but the comrade in question, who was on the lookout and slightly uneasy, but made great fun of his companion, who had apparently fired at some shadows. Henriot was annoyed and inclined to be hard on him. Lamalou went to him. "Blackguard 'im if yer like, sir, but don't 'ave 'im punished. It's always the same story o' nights just at fust, you sees and 'ears things!" He spoke from his experience in the African bush. Henriot calmed down, and agreed that the sentinels were too far from the reserve picket; the arrangement of them was altered. This continued all night ... shots, quite near at hand or some far away, marking out the zone which was being patrolled. We soon got accustomed to it. At the end of two hours no one worried about it any longer, indeed not enough. An overpowering desire to sleep began to take possession of us. Over and over again I almost gave way. My head nodded, my eyelids closed. Then Guillaumin gave me a shake. "Halloa, there, don't leave us in the lurch!" Henriot rubbed it in! "Remember we are responsible for the security of the whole army."