Bouillon was licking his lips, topping that last bit of cheese! Judsi had got hold of Siméon, and was ragging him, telling him that big louts like him would be the first to be knocked out. Siméon was genuinely amused by the idea. Lamalou was calmly blackening Icard's, the miller's, sight. They might all have been a hundred miles away from the battle-field where more than one of them would fall! And Guillaumin? I asked him how he felt. "Pretty fit, thanks. I've had a good nap!" It did not seem to occur to him that I might be solicitous about his morale. They were all heroes then. My goodness no! Simply happy-go-lucky! There was a slight distinction though, and whatever it was, they scored by a propitious frame of mind. I was afraid that I might show up badly, being the only one to remain clear-headed. What could be done about it? I forced a wry smile. Then I saw that Corporal Donnadieu was looking very unhappy and depressed. His nostrils looked pinched, and he was gazing at the ground.... He was obviously not keen to fight. I felt sorry for him. He was no doubt thinking of his wife, of his two children, one of them on the way.... I caught sight of Frémont, standing stock-still in the rear of the first platoon. I knew what he was dreaming of too. I repented at the thought that I might have impaired his courage yesterday. A persistent shadow seemed to have clouded his face ever since ... I only hoped that he too might get through. CHAPTER IX THE BAPTISM OF FIRE Once having left the wood, we reached the little hilltop of which I have already spoken. In spite of having been told that the modern battle-field is empty, I had never imagined anything so desert like as this. Not a man to be seen in these fields which sloped gently downwards; it was abandoned territory. The firing still continued to rage around us. We could even distinguish a distant crackling now, either rifle-firing or shrapnel, a sign that we were getting nearer. When we passed by a Calvary, I saw some of the men sign themselves, Gaudéreaux and Trichet among others. They would never have done it during manoeuvres. Why was I inclined to see in this Calvary one of the points which would decide the fate of the struggle? I think I must have been hypnotised by the remembrance of the one at Isly. I recollected Zola's superb pages in _La Débâcle_. Another passage which recurred to my mind was the description of Waterloo in _La Chartreuse_ for which I had had a great admiration ever since my schooldays. I was tempted to compare myself with Fabrice. How far removed I was from his freshness of spirit, his youthful enthusiasm. Guillaumin suddenly signed to me. "Just look at that!" Down below us, yonder, there rose a puff of smoke, then another nearer; a third; all in a line. They might have been little bonfires lit by an invisible hand. The bursting points of shells! The noise of the short sharp reports reached us.