To take post duty at night, in an unfamiliar sector, is a novel experience. For the first time you have the impression that you are waging war: war such as your imagination depicted it, war according to the story-books of your boyhood.
Corporal Belin explains that we must be careful not to take the waving of a beetroot leaf for the advance of an enemy.
Every two minutes he counts off: one! and each man must answer in file: two, three, four, five, six.
Thus he makes sure that no one is asleep. The prolonged whistle of the bullets as they pass makes us open our eyes. We can hear dull sounds in front of us: the Germans are camping, cutting down trees. A dog barks. Carts rumble along: the German supplies, no doubt. The roar of cannon in the distance.
It is bitterly cold. Hoar-frost shows itself on our coats and on the beetroots. My jacket is in my haversack: I take it out and tie it round my neck by the sleeves. Impossible to keep warm.
Reymond passes me a small bottle.
"Taste. This must be something especially good; it comes from home."
I take a good drink.
"Gracious! How strong it is! And what a strange taste!"