It was about time for "cookhouse door" to go. Our card-players reappeared. I enjoyed first their surprise, then their only thin-veiled annoyance. It was particularly aggravating for the schoolmasters. Henriot, with his hand on my shoulder, was talking to me as to an intimate confidant. They began to wander round, anxious to interrupt us, but withheld from doing so by their deeply-rooted respect for rank. Great Heavens! if I had guessed what would put an end to our conversation! Henriot stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence. "Hsh! What's that...?" "That dull distant rumble...." The men scattered about in the road and in the yard, were listening intently. Corporal Bouguet who was passing muttered: "No, it can't be...?" It began again, like the echo of a peal of thunder.... Then the subaltern pronounced the word I had expected: "The guns!" "What?" It ran along repeated from mouth to mouth. The guns! The guns! I shuddered with physical anguish. A battle in progress over there, quite near by, which I felt would draw us in and swallow us up. The guns! Were they the ones which would make a pulp of my body? Guillaumin suddenly appeared and seized me by the arm. "My heart's beating. How queer it is!" I was stupid enough to swagger. "It reminds me of the Camp of Châlons!" CHAPTER IV AN ALARM The guns went on growling at intervals for an hour, and then stopped. Have I explained that our company was quartered almost in the open? Too much in the open, apparently. The order came round for us to clear out, and to squeeze into the smaller of the two farms which we occupied. Nothing could have been more uncomfortable than the stable, or rather the cattle-shed which fell to our platoon. It might even have been a pig-stye to judge by the stink! They had contented themselves with throwing a thin layer of straw on the litter of dung. The men grumbled: Loriot most of all. I went to see for myself, the others were in the same predicament. They were openly discussing the ill-feeling which was beginning to establish itself between the commanding officer and the captain. Every time there was a particularly filthy billet going, it would be for the 22nd! I was hesitating about lying down when Guillaumin came up beaming. "Breton certainly has a flair for comfortable quarters; there's no denying it. Do you know what they've rooted out? A hay-loft. And a clean one, too! We'll have it all to ourselves. We must get hold of De Valpic." We went to find him. "Thanks, it's awfully good of you!" He assured us, though, that he would prefer to sleep alongside some rick as it was fine to-night. "You'll be frozen!" "I shall get some fresh air!" "As much as you could want!" Guillaumin showed me the way. It was behind the outhouses. A ladder was leaning up against it. I caught sight of Playoust at the window. He drew his head in immediately. Descroix appeared. "There's not room for two!" he shouted. "How's that?"