* Who goes there?
It was very cold, a dry cold, notwithstanding the fog.
Soon, from the direction of the square in the interior of the city, a number of men went up the street; if they had kept step the enemy would have heard them from the distance upon the glacis; but they came pell-mell, and turned near us into the postern stair-way. It took full ten minutes for them to pass. You can imagine whether I watched them, and yet I could not recognize our sergeant in the darkness.
The two companies formed again in the trenches after their defiling, and all was still.
My feet were perfectly numb, it was so cold; but curiosity kept me there.
At last, after about half an hour, a pale line stretched behind the bottom-land of Fiquet, around the woods of La Bonne-Fontaine. Captain Rolfo, the other citizens, and myself, leaned against the rampart, and looked at the snow-covered plain, where some German patrols were wandering in the fog, and nearer to us, at the foot of the glacis, the Wurtemburg sentinel stood motionless in the poplar alley which leads to the large shed of the tile-kiln.
Everything was still gray and indistinct; though the winter sun, as white as snow, rose above the dark line of firs. Our soldiers stood motionless, with grounded arms, in the covered ways. The "Verdâs!" and "Souïdas!" went their rounds. It grew lighter every moment.
No one would have believed that a fight was preparing, when six o'clock sounded from the mayoralty, and suddenly our two companies, without command, started, shouldering their arms, from the covered ways, and silently descended the glacis.
In less than a minute, they reached the road which stretches along the gardens, and defiled to the left, following the hedges.
You cannot imagine my fright when I found that the fight was about to begin. It was not yet clear daylight, but still the enemy's sentinel saw the line of bayonets filing behind the hedges, and called out in a terrible way: "Verdâ!"