Our friend Varlet takes off his apron as a sign of mourning. He has been the cook of the squadron.
"The lieutenant," he says, "is the first man I ever took pleasure in obeying. Now that he is gone, I will cook no more!"
Monday, 26th October.
It may be on account of the departure of the lieutenant, anyhow, the jovial pleasant life of the past no longer obtains in the first line.
This morning we are told to dig a branch, i.e. a winding passage between five and six feet in height, which will link up the old English trenches with the outpost line. The enemy is firing.
A sergeant, who left Humes with the Roberty detachment, receives a bullet in his head. The stretcher-bearers who carry him off pass right in front of us. The wounded man looks as lifeless as a log. The dressing about his forehead is red with blood. We salute, and then dig away with pick and shovel harder than ever.
At nightfall the company occupies a new sector in a wood, on the top of a hillock. Here there are no more trenches, but instead, along the road which ascends and descends between the trees, are huts made of branches and earth, capable of sheltering three of us at most.
Tuesday, 27th October.
A day of rest, with the sun shining upon us. We have received blankets and coverings. They are very welcome.
Artillery duel. The game has its rules. This morning, for instance, it is the Germans who silence the French artillery; i.e. they cover with projectiles our supposed emplacements or sites. Whilst this is happening, our gunners leave their cannons deep buried in the ground and go away for a quiet pipe in a safe shelter. When the Germans cease firing the French will begin. Then the maddening crack of the 75's, the hoarse coughing sound of the 105's, and the 155's will indicate that the turn of the French artillery has come to reduce the enemy to silence.