Thursday, 13th August.
Four in the morning.
"Time to get up!"
We shake and stretch ourselves. It is rather chilly.
The men come down from the loft on a tottering ladder which has one out of every two rungs missing.
In the street, the army cook, who has long been up and about, ladles coffee from a huge pot and fills the tins held out. In the tumult each man retires into a corner to avoid spilling the precious liquid.
Six o'clock. We are marched out of the village in columns of fours. The country is charming; the meadows through which flows the Marne are lined with poplars.
We return to quarters at ten o'clock. The sun's rays are beating down upon us. We baptize our street Dung Avenue.
Fortunately for us, the impossibility of isolating ourselves prevents us from thinking of what we have left behind. Here solitude and silence are unknown.