We saw them as we approached lying in all attitudes upon either side of the road, some few munching bread from the haversack, and some few drinking from their gourds. As we came up they were compelled to rise to salute another arm upon its passage, and their faces, all their double hedge of faces, were full of insolence and of merriment, for they had recently sung and eaten, and the march had done them good—they had covered about eighteen miles.
So we went by, and when we had left them some few hundred yards we again heard faintly behind us the beginning of a new song, the tune of which was known among us as “The Washerwoman.” It is a good marching song. But shortly after this we heard no more, for first the noise of the horse hoofs extinguished the singing, and later distance swallowed it up altogether.
We had come into quarters early in the afternoon, we had groomed our horses and fed them, and watered them at the chalkiest stream, we had brought them back to their stables, and the stable guard was set; those who were not on duty went off about the village, and several, of whom I was one, gathered in the house of a man whose relative in the regiment had led us thither.
He received us well, for he was a farmer in a large way; he gave us wine, bread, and eggs, and a little bacon. He said he hoped that no more troops would come into the little village that day. We told him that the Line would come, so far as we knew, but he answered that he had heard from his brother, who was mayor of the adjoining commune, that the Line were to be quartered in that neighbouring parish, that they would march through the village in which we were, and sleep in the houses about a mile ahead of us upon the road to Rheims.
While he was speaking thus we heard again, but much louder than before (for it came upon us round the corner of the village street), the noise of a marching song. They were singing at the top of their voices—they were in a sort of fury of singing.
They passed along making more dust than ever before, and anyone who had not known them would have said they were out of hand. Several were limping as they went, one or two, recognising the gunners and the drivers, waved their hands. The rest still sang. No one had fallen out. Their arms they carried anyhow, and more than one man was carrying two rifles (probably for money), and more than one man was carrying none, and some had their rifles slung across their backs, and some tucked under their arms. So they went forward, and again we heard their singing dwindle, but this time it continued much longer than before, and I think we heard it up to the halt, when their task was accomplished and the march was done.
They are an incredible people!