Sergeant Chaboy enters.
"Have you room for me here?"
We shout out: "Vive Chaboy!" and welcome him affectionately, for he has manœuvred his half-section beneath the enemy's fire without losing a single man.
At nine o'clock the lieutenant calls for volunteers to pick up the dead. Varlet, Jacquard, and Charensac offer themselves; they are anxious to bring back two old chums with whom they served before war broke out. They return at midnight.
Saturday, 14th November.
Eight bodies are laid out here, in front of the grotto, with their uniforms all torn and muddy. We try to recognize them.
Around the bodies things follow their ordinary course: fatigue duty, men sweeping and digging the road. The cooks are busy about the fire. Ten men ordered to dig a grave at Bucy cemetery set off, shovel or pick on shoulder.
Belin runs up; he has not been able to get away from his company sooner. On finding us all alive, he lifts his hands in the air and can scarcely contain himself for joy. The 21st has only a few wounded.
We spend the day in relishing the pleasure of being alive; a sensation unknown to civilians.
The relief arrives—a battalion of Alpins—and we leave the trenches just as boys leave school on breaking-up day, with feelings of unpolluted joy, and also the thought that the return is in the dim distance and somewhat problematical.