When he reached the Bayon-Lunéville road again he had on each side of him two railways running nearly due north and south and cutting the road (which to the east crosses the Mortagne at Lamath, and then turns northward past Xermaménil, Rehanviller, and Hériménil to Lunéville) at a distance of about three miles apart. The one on the right curves away behind to Gerbéviller, the one on the left to Bayon, eventually to meet some distance to the south at Epinal. In front, to the north, both of them join the railway which runs from Lunéville to St. Nicolas-du-Port round the lower edge of the forest of Vitrimont, following closely the course of the Meurthe. On the further side of the forest the road from Lunéville to Dombasle, St. Nicolas-du-Port, and Nancy stretches across from right to left, and, as you see it on the map, the whole area composed of the forest and the ground beyond, as far as the Lunéville-Nancy road, is shaped like a feeding-cup, with Lunéville for the handle and Dombasle for the spout. North-west of Lunéville, along the Dombasle road, comes first the Faubourg de Nancy, and then two miles and four miles further on the villages of Vitrimont and Hudiviller, with the farm of Léomont midway between them, standing up on much higher ground just to the north of the road. In the parallelogram between the two railways south of the forest (which is about five miles long by two and a half deep) there are two villages, first Mont (with a bridge over the Mortagne), and then a little further west Blainville, both of them on a road which runs parallel to the Meurthe and quite close to it. At the point where this road crosses the Dombasle-Bayon railway there is another small village called Damelevières, and, also on this railway and a mile south of it, the village of Charmois. Taking a wider view of the whole terrain, the Lunéville-Dombasle road and the railway running round the forest with the two railways south of it and the stretch of the Bayon-Lunéville road between them form a rough figure of eight. To the west of the lower half of it trenches had been dug that morning on the plateau south of the Meurthe by the troops under the command of General Bigot, one of General Dubail’s brigadiers. The plateau of Saffais, midway between the Meurthe and the Moselle, was occupied by the 64th division, and on their right another division, the 74th, guarded the gap between Saffais and the Mortagne. Between them they formed a curtain of troops which was to play a very important part in the coming battle, which was fought chiefly over the ground covered by the figure of eight, but partly also further south, below the Bayon-Lunéville road, as far as the line between Bayon and Gerbéviller.