Thus it was with us. I was pleased with Berthet. He had carried himself well, and I told him so. That pleased him. He was a boy whose self-esteem was well developed, who could impose upon a rather weak body decisions made by his will. “I was afraid of only one thing,” he said, “and that was that I might be afraid.” I smiled and answered: “But you will be afraid. It is only fools who know not fear, or deny it. Every one knows fear. Even the bravest of the brave, Maréchal Ney himself, knew it well.” At this moment our lieutenant returned from his hazardous expedition, without having observed anything remarkable, and there was nothing for us to do but wait for other sentries to relieve us, or for orders specifying a new mission. Nothing of the sort came, at first. If we had been abandoned in a desert, our solitude could not have been more complete. As far as the eye could see, we could not detect a living thing. There were no more fugitives. We two were guarding a bare highroad where neither man nor beast appeared. At last, some one was seen coming from the fort. It was a comrade bringing coffee and news. While we were absorbing with delight the hot drink which seemed to make renewed life throb in our veins, he recounted the events which had taken place behind us, and in some manner under our protection. “The boys,” he said, “have left. The fort will be blown up. It seems that we have waited too long already. The Germans have gone by, now. We are surrounded. No one knows how those animals slip by, but there is fighting all around us.” “No! Is that true?” “Truest thing you know. Last night we put mines in the powder-magazine. There are eight metres of fuse. We will light it on leaving. You are going to see some fireworks.” We did not know what to say, at first. We could not doubt the accuracy of the information supplied by our comrade, but Berthet’s surprise was extreme. The most difficult thing, in war, is to be willing to comprehend nothing of what surrounds you near at hand, and to content yourself to live as does an animal. Always one tries to reason, to use logic, and nothing is further removed from reason and logic than important events in which one is plunged, but of which one sees but an infinitesimal part, too small to form even an approximate idea of the whole. “How,” says Berthet, “could the enemy pass by in force, without using this road?” I shook my head. “Who knows?” “I don’t know how it was done,” declared our comrade, “but they have passed us. As proof, three kilometres from here they took by surprise a squad asleep in a farmhouse. The Uhlans arrived without any one suspecting, and made them all prisoners.”