The dugouts interest us particularly. We are later to become surfeited with them, but as yet they are still delightfully novel. The rumble of the guns can be heard plainly from here, and at rare intervals a _saucisse_ rises on the horizon, much to our joy and excitement. * * * * * THE _saucisse_ is a balloon shaped like a sausage—hence its name. At the front they are in the sky by the hundreds on both sides to direct the fire of the artillery and to observe the enemy’s operations generally. They are consequently made the objective of the aeroplane, and many are brought down every day. The aeroplane dodges along from cloud to cloud, and when he is just over the _saucisse_ suddenly swoops down, and with a tic-tic-tic from his machine-gun the bag crumples up in a cloud of black smoke and flames, the observer jumps out with his parachute, and the aeroplane dashes off pursued by many shells. In the balloons the observers all have parachutes and usually make their escape, although often they have to spend a little time dangling from the limb of some tree. * * * * * WE are told not to stray far, as the order to move may come at any moment. We take walks through the country, and always on returning find the section with “no news,”—but at last the order comes. [Illustration: A SAUCISSE] We have gotten our baggage ready, and are sitting around in the darkness smoking our pipes and thinking. Tomorrow we are going up to the lines. A big attack has been scheduled, and we are to take care of the wounded. It is to be our first work, and any fighting at all seems a “big attack” to us. We are a green section, fresh from Paris. We have never heard a shell whistle, and have been thrilled by the sound of guns twenty miles away. What will be our sensations face to face with the real thing? We are a bit nervous. There is some tension. We discuss the probable extent of the attack and debate as to its success. This leads us nowhere, and after we have pledged each other and the section “_Bonne chance_” in a glass of cognac from a bottle opened for the occasion, we turn in. * * * * * IT is cold and chill, and a steady drizzle is oozing from the sky above into the earth beneath, and is making it soft and slippery. I awake, yawn, stretch sleepily, and gaze out into the grey dejection of the morning. I have been sleeping luxuriously on the floor of an ambulance, wedged in between two trunks and a duffle-bag. “Well, this is ‘_der Tag_’ for us,” I remark to a friend, who has spent the night on top of the two trunks.