After his short trip to the Argonne, the author spent the last days of July in the Flanders' Sector, where he remained until the end of September.
CHAPTER THREE
MOVING, NIEUPORT.
July, 1915.
My poilus were disagreeably surprised this morning. The proprietress of one of the villas occupied by a certain number of my men arrived at Nieuport this morning accompanied by a Belgian gendarme. General Hély d'Oissel, commanding the Division, had authorized the latter to make a search for some wine she had left in the house.
This is what is extraordinary: it is true the wine was there, but imagine and understand the despair of the poilus—they did not suspect the existence of the treasure! Some good pinard[10] was placed in a hole under the stairway, into which one descended by means of a trap door, also skillfully camouflaged by a morsel of linoleum.
And to think they had slept several months over this precious pinard without knowing it!
Luckily the good woman's carriage could not enter the city on account of the barricades, and other defense works, so my good-natured poilus profited by it, and aided her in moving. In this manner they saved a few bottles, which probably would have been broken by the jolting of the conveyance.