om clusters of foliage as brightly green
as a salad. The village is there, and our looks embrace it, but we are
not there yet. For a long time it seems to recede as fast as the
regiment crawls towards it.

At long last, on the stroke of noon, we reach the quarters that had
begun to appear a pretense and a legend. In regular step and with
rifles on shoulders, the regiment floods the street of Gauchin-l'Abbe
right to its edges. Most of the villages of the Pas du Calais are
composed of a single street, but such a street! It is often several
kilometers long. In this one, the street divides in front of the mairie
and forms two others, so that the hamlet becomes a big Y, brokenly
bordered by low-built dwellings.

The cyclists, the officers, the orderlies, break away from the long
moving mass. Then, as they come up, a few of the men at a time are
swallowed up by the barns, the still available houses being reserved
for officers and departments. Our half-company is led at first to the
end of the village, and then--by some misunderstanding among the
quartermasters--back to the other end, the one by which we entered.
This oscillation takes up time, and the squad, dragged thus from north
to south and from south to north, heavily fatigued and irritated by
wasted walking, evinces feverish impatience. For it is supremely
important to be installed and set free as early as possible if we are
to carry out the plan we have cherished so long--to find a native with
some little place to let, and a table where the squad can have its
meals. We have talked a good deal about this idea and its delightful
advantages. We have taken counsel, subscribed to a common fund, and
decided that this time we will take the header into the additional
outlay.

But will it be possible? Very many places are already snapped up. We
are not the only ones to bring our dream of comfort here, and it will
be a race for that table. Three companies are coming in after ours, but
four were here before us, and there are the officers, the cooks of the
hospital staff for the Section, and the clerks, the drivers, the
orderlies and others, official cooks of the sergeants' mess, and I
don't know how many more. All these men are more influential than the
soldiers of the line, they have more mobility and more money, and can
bring off their schemes beforehand. Already, while we march four
abreast towards the barn assigned to the squad, we see some of these
jokers across the conq