The relief! Who will ever adequately sing its praise? It came at night, ordinarily. Two or three days before the event the sector saw strangers arrive for a visit, officers and sergeants, who looked around and took instructions. This is the way they were shown about: “Look out at this point. This part of the trench seems to be in easy range of the guns.” “This is a bad corner. Torpedoes hit it every morning. Go by quickly over there, for you can be seen.” “Every man who passes this spot is saluted by a bullet. We have some wounded every evening.” They took notes, made observations and inquiries. We looked upon their activities with satisfaction. They were the forerunners of comrades who were about to come, in their turn, to enjoy a period in the open country--underground. They never came too soon. Already we were making up our packets, putting our affairs in order, buckling our knapsacks, filling our side-bags. We departed fewer than we came. We left some chums in the earth, under humble mounds marked with a cross. There was one man surprised when on patrol--he was carried back dying in the arms of his companions. Another, disembowelled by a grenade, fell at his post without a cry. We had known these men, we had loved them. One was gay, one was grave. All were loyal comrades whom we would never see again. When killed they had remained all day lying at their posts. A cloth was thrown over them, concealing the face and partly covering the body. In the evening when the shadows fell, we put them in their graves. It was very simple. If possible, the section surrounded the grave, a rough excavation hollowed in the dirt thrown up from the trenches. Sometimes, not always, some one murmured a prayer. The body was lowered, and the dead went his way saluted as a hero by the cannon. That was all. It was sad and impressive, simple as an unpremeditated gesture. Some one put a bunch of field-flowers on the fresh mound. The soldier’s cap was placed on the wooden cross. Then into a bottle was slipped the name of the departed--dead that France might live, fallen at his post of honor. Immediately we returned to our places, to watch and to fight. To-day it was he. To-morrow it would be one’s self. The relief came by following the communication-trenches. Curious concerning their new post, the fresh arrivals asked many questions: “Pretty nifty here, isn’t it?” “Where are the kitchens?” We informed them as rapidly as possible. We wished that they would arrive more quickly. It seemed as if we would perish in waiting for them, and that the danger increased by their coming. They made a lot of noise. They went back and forth, they talked. Surely the Boche would hear them and let loose his cannon.