A volunteer infantryman arrived with a packet of salt. Salt is getting rare. The arrival was made the occasion of a quick cooking of the universal soup. The talk flickered up; chiefly of friends and positions of regiments, details confused and not to be recorded. The end of one story, however, stands out vividly: "We were only three, and he could not walk further, and it was a cold night. We could not put him in a haystack, for the 'Bosches' burn them; or in a cottage, till 'they' had gone past. So we made a shallow trough between the furrows, leaving him warm with his head uncovered, and pulled a harrow above him. In the morning the peasant who had left the harrow would find him, warm; or it would be easy to finish burying him."
The last of them rolled up in their coats and straw to sleep, my corporal still murmuring: "I wonder where he is, the little one—so high? Perhaps, after the war——"
And it seemed only a moment later that the dawn began behind Paris, yellow behind the grey towers above the still mists.
Paris, Saturday dawn.
During the respite of the last days the army of defence has at least got what sleep it could.
The trenches within the circle of forts are cloaked before dawn by mist. Here and there, hidden under temporary shelters, a groan or murmur tells where the soldiers sleep on straw, behind the entrenchments. The stations of the local railway lines are filled with straw, and among sacks and accoutrements the more fortunate are asleep, crowded close under the open sheds.
If I move my head, shadows loom out of the mist—the close-standing sentries. Singular figures, hidden in white vapour to the waist. All wearing heavy cloaks of different types, but made uniform by the military cap, the shouldered or grounded musket.
The challenges run round, in subdued tones. Even suspicion seems lulled. In the truce of the night the mind even of the sentry is passive. The artificial atmosphere, that makes all but the known uniform an enemy, is forgotten for the moment.
Back towards Paris, the city is shoulder-deep in white mist. Only the spires and towers emerge, grey and sleepy. The summit of the Eiffel Tower is lost again in a yet higher belt.