26th February, 1915.—Under cover of fog I left my shelter and had some wire entanglements made. The men were able to work without drawing fire. Per contra a German patrol came exploring, counting on the fog for concealment. Having arrived opposite Règues’s section, they must have lost their way and pitched straight on to us. We hit three of them. All the morning, fifty mètres off, we saw them wriggling and raising their legs, and we heard them crying out. It was impossible to go to bring them in, the Germans would have fired on us. One of them signalled that he was ready to surrender. He put up his hands and cried, “Kamarad, Kamarad,” so he can’t be badly wounded. We could see him rise, unbuckle his belt and throw off his pack. My men, very pleased, were ready to receive him with open arms, but he regained his own lines at a bound. We let off a salvo, but the “Kamarad” had already disappeared. The two others kept on wriggling like worms.
2nd March, 1915.—I am occupying a new sector, not nearly so good as the first; trench fallen in, full of water, communications difficult, no comfortable command post; I sleep on the hard ground in the cold. My predecessor, when giving me my instructions, warned me that for two days past we had been badly shelled.
3rd March.—At 8.30 the first shell, a “105,” came over and pitched some mètres from my post. I was almost thrown out of the dug-out; earth and mud flew in all directions, and shell fragments fell with a sharp noise. Some moments after a second one came over, then a third and then, for three-quarters of an hour, they fell without ceasing.
All the shells fell on my left. The men were a little pale in face of this form of danger, against which there is nothing to be done. After a quarter of an hour the trench became untenable, the shelters, the parapets, the dug-out, were all tumbling down. Sometimes the shock and the displacement of air threw us in bunches one against the other.
I remained at the command post until the next dug-out was knocked to pieces, burying a man under the ruins. I then caused the whole section to be evacuated, except by a watcher, and I asked hospitality from a 2nd lieutenant of machine-guns.
At last the storm calmed down and I sent everyone back to his place. The trench was a veritable timber yard, and rifles and mess tins littered the ground. The parapet by the side of my shelter was knocked down level with the ground, leaving a gaping opening that we must repair to-night.
Six o’clock.—After the tension of such a morning I heard with pleasure the cry of “Stand to your arms.” Each man flew to his rifle; they too, I think, were pleased. I had gone back to see my comrade the machine-gunner, but it did not take me long to cover the thirty or forty mètres of trench which separated me from my men.
How good a thing it was to hear this crackle of rifle fire after the disquieting row of the “105’s”! “Stand to the machine-gun.” I saw with pleasure the four men at their gun, and I admired the graceful movement of the man who crouched to fire and who, unconsciously, assumed the posture of an animal ready to spring. Unfortunately the enemy were not “for it.” At our first shots the Germans got back into their trenches.
27th March.—We arrived yesterday in the second line, or rather in reserve. The huts are in a pine wood, surrounded with ridges. We arrived by moonlight. The bullets passed high and struck the tops of the trees. These huts are in the form of a redskin’s wigwam, made of earth and sacking. To-day we went hunting with revolvers and we killed a rabbit! We cooked it ourselves and enjoyed it for dinner.