We reached the orchard above the great quarry, and an outlying picket warned us that the path was dangerous.
The commander did not even hear him and continued to walk on the road from Herbècourt, bordered by apple trees in blossom.
“Ta-co!”
A German bullet tore through the night, and a broken branch with its white petals fell at our feet.
He picked it up and looked at it a long time; plucked a blossom and put it in his pocket,
“Even the flowers!”
He said nothing more that evening. We went through the front lines of the sector until late at night, stopping at the loopholes to observe the enemy’s position and questioning the sentries.
We got back to Froissy at three o’clock in the morning, and at six he went to the station at Guillaucourt and left on his leave.
When he got back, the attack, they said, was near; they were preparing for it seriously. He did not give up attending to the slightest details of the battalion. He showed a paternal interest in his men, knew the men of all ranks by their names, and stopped those he met and talked to them familiarly.
The battalion followed the deep path to the entrance of the “120 long” to get back to its positions. A wooden bridge had been constructed here by the artillery to get their guns across. This was useless now and made the road so narrow that the column had to dress back and form by twos. This long manœuvre compelled the men to mark time in one spot.