During roll-call, which takes place in the main street, a shrapnel explodes on a neighbouring house. Broken tiles rain down upon us. Instinctively we "form a carapace." The lieutenant has not stirred a muscle. "Surely," he remarks, "you are not going to get excited over a little falling dirt. Attention!" We all line up and stand at attention. The next moment the ranks are broken, and each man returns to his quarters, laughing and joking at the incident.
After all, we make a jest of everything. This is the secret of that dash and enthusiasm boasted of in the official communiqués, and about which civilians must have the most vague ideas. The good humour that has stood a campaign of four months must be in the grain; at all events, it is of quite a special kind.
The source of our morale lies in the fact that we accept life as we find it.
This evening the company returns to the trenches and sleeps in the grotto.
Thursday, 26th November.
The frost has disappeared; now we have a thaw with its inevitable filth and mud. The entrance of the grotto is a veritable sewer. We enter along slippery slopes, almost impassable.
Latest news from the kitchens: the regiment is about to leave for the fort of Arche, near Epinal, unless it goes on to Amiens ... unless, again, it remains here.
This evening, in the grotto, Maxence lies on his back smoking a cigarette. He murmurs softly to Reymond, who is making a sketch, some lines from the Fêtes galantes—
Au calme clair de lune triste et beau
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.