The company is quartered at Acy-le-Haut, where it sojourned in October. At midnight we have to hoist ourselves into a loft by the aid of a ladder, two-thirds of whose rungs are missing. We sink softly into bundles of hay. For twenty-two days, with the exception of two rests of twenty-four hours each at Bucy, we have not left the trenches. Outside it is freezing hard.
A LULL
Sunday, 15th November.
The feelings of utter exhaustion which come over us from time to time do not last long. You think yourself at the last gasp, and yet the following day you are as fresh as possible.
This morning we are taken in charge by Madame Gillot, who lodged us on the 9th October. We receive a warm welcome—
"What, you are all alive!"
Milliard, the postman, brings us over twenty parcels; we are admirably revictualled both in food and in warm clothing.