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This time there were no squirrels, but he begged young rabbits from the old couple who had once been servants in the château where we were billeted. They had trudged back at once on the retirement of the Boches, and were making the best of the changed conditions. There was, of course, no chafing-dish, and the stew was cooked in an iron pot which hung over an open fire in the ancient kitchen.

The Lorilleuxs and the Boches made sure that Gervaise did not miss a single improvement and chuckled to themselves while watching her expression. There was also a question of a man beneath all this. It was reported that Lantier had broken off with Gervaise. The neighborhood declared that it was quite right. In short, it gave a moral tone to the street.

But when we reached the Boche front trenches a strange thing happened. There was no fight worth mentioning. The tanks stopped over the trenches and blazed away right and left with their all-around traverse. A few Boches ran out and threw silly little bombs at the monsters. The tanks, noses in air, moved slowly on.

'Men digging on road from High Wood southeast to Longueval. Yes, I've got that. 'They are our men and not Boches. Oh, hell!... Get off the line. Get off the line, can't you?... 'Our men and not Boches. Yes, I have that. 'Heavily shelled by our guns." The staff-officer tapped on the table with a lead-pencil a tattoo, while his forehead puckered. Then he spoke into the telephone again.

As though a negative reply to his faint-heartedness, he overheard the voice of a soldier reassuring a farmer: "We are retreating, yes only that we may pounce upon the Boches with more strength. Grandpa Joffre is going to put them in his pocket when and where he will." The mere sound of the Marshal's name revived Don Marcelo's hope.

"What is it?" I said to a Zouave who was plodding along beside the ambulance. "Des Boches crossing the river." The regiment plodded on as before. Now and then a soldier would stop and look up at the aeroplanes. "He's coming!" I heard a voice exclaim. Suddenly, the adjutant whom I had seen before came galloping down the line, shouting, "Arrêtez! Arrêtez! Pas de mouvement!"

The sentry, seeing his position, came in and tried to cheer him by talking to him: "Never mind them guns, boy, they won't hurt you. They are ours. We are giving the Boches a dose of their own medicine. Our boys are going over the top at dawn of the morning to take their trenches. We'll give 'em a taste of cold steel with their sausages and beer. You just sit tight now until they relieve you.

We would get square with the Boches over Verdun, we thought it is impossible to chase airplanes at night, so the raiders made a safe getaway. As soon as we pilots had left in our machines, the trucks and tractors set out in convoy, carrying the men and equipment. The Nieuports carried us to our new post in a little more than an hour.

Captain Thenault landed some distance from there that he might go over there in a car and see just what could be done about poor Mac's body. When he returned last night he told us the following: Mac, he said, was as badly mangled as the machine and had been relieved of his flying suit by the damned boches, also of his shoes and all papers.

No doubt My-Boots was a boozer; but then he had such a fantastic appetite that he was always asked to join those sort of gatherings, just for the sight of the caterer's mug when he beheld that bottomless pit swallowing his twelve pounds of bread. The young woman on her side, promised to bring her employer Madame Fauconnier and the Boches, some very agreeable people.