"Near Mouilly, two, three miles; you have your back to it."
"And then!... (Censored)!... (Censored)!..."
"Silence behind there!" I bawl out. "Aubert, Lardin, silence! you fools! Or that little lullaby of yours won't have a pleasant ending!"
Here we are, at Rupt-en-Wöevre. The regiment bivouacks in a field at one end of the village. I know nothing at all of the situation, and I find it difficult to take my bearings. The hour is now two in the morning.
We are chilled to the marrow. Porchon and I sit down, back to back, tapping one foot against the other while awaiting the coming of the day. The cold steals up our legs and stiffens them. We find it quite impossible to maintain our position. I tramp up and down a sloping road before some barns. From time to time a man half opens one of the doors and creeps in. By Jove! That's a good idea! I steal into one of the barns to find some thirty men already in occupation. An hour passes, maybe two, during which I sit half on a sack, half on an old hen, who ruffles herself and grumbles constantly.
Dawn cold and stark. We light a fire and endeavour to restore our circulation.
I start a few letters, fingers frozen, nose wet:
"I do not know how I look; but to tell the truth, my powers of resistance have astonished even myself. It is strange and marvellous how every one among us appears to possess a faculty for adapting himself to the immediate circumstances. Our hard life has hardened us and will keep us so, for however long it may continue. At the present moment, it would seem as if we had been born to wage war, to sleep in the open no matter what the weather, to eat when, where, and what we can, also as much as we can. You have a cloth on your table? Spoons, forks, all kinds of forks--for the oysters, the fruits, the snails, and so on? You even have a clean plate for each course--isn't it funny? Glasses are placed before you of all shapes and sizes, so fragile that a pressure of the hand would break them. And you drink your coffee--I have a vague memory that this is so--out of a fine glass which is not the same as that from which you drink your tea, for example! But how complicated all that is! We others have our pocket-knife, our mugs, and our fingers! I assure you they are quite sufficient...."