We crowded round the fountain, on the surrounding wall of which the last Bulletin des Communes was pasted. But first we each drank, in great gulps, at least a quart of fresh water. Afterwards we read the news. All was going well! Nevertheless, it was announced that Mulhouse had been retaken. Apparently, then, it had been lost. We exchanged impressions:
"Well, Hutin?"
"Not bad," he answered rather dubiously, "but they don't say anything about our little show of last week."
Bréjard, on the contrary, was filled with an optimism which nothing could damp:
"Virton, Marville—why, all that is a mere nothing on a front as long as this! We've had to give a little in some sectors, that's all.... But otherwise things are going quite all right!"
"All the same, it isn't nice to find ourselves in one of the sectors which have to give way," answered Hutin.
"All that will change. We're going to be reinforced.... They say that De Langle is only a day's march off."
"He'll have to hurry up if he wants to find any of the 4th Infantry left!"
That was true. The regiments of the line, especially those of the 8th Division, had suffered terribly. Some battalions had been diminished by two-thirds, and, since the Battle of Virton, many companies were not more than fifty or eighty strong, and had lost all their officers. How we wished that De Langle would arrive!