A long, large, white table, with benches----. How many of us will no longer sit there! Everyone found in this little space is loved like a brother.
On the board wall which separates the room from our sleeping quarters, which is arranged like a sleeping-car, there is a map of Alsace-Lorraine. Gunther, with his big fist, has traced an arrow in ink, which points from Eparges to Strasbourg. He has written:
"The hearts and aspirations of the 14th Company of the 15th Corps point this way!"
At night the rats, with an unseasonable boldness, run up and down between the corrugated iron and the roof. One doesn't know if they're playing or fighting. These gallops on the metal awake us with a start.
A flash from my electric lamp and I discover an immense rat tearing across the room with a telephone message sent to me at the moment I retired.
Ménard and Foulu prepare the evening meal before the arrival of the post-sergeant. The little fireplace at the side blazes cheerfully and fills the dugout with the pleasant odor of burning wood.
Happiness is his who can relax completely after a rough day----
The post-sergeant arrives drenched, his package of letters and newspapers carefully wrapped. He seems ill at ease as if he finds himself in a palace.
"Ménard, give your friend a quart of _pinard_."
The paquet of letters for Captain Gunther is always very large. Many of them commence like this:
"I thank you from the bottom of my heart for having given us details of the death of our boy. We are proud of him."
Then there are others cheerful enough, others very sad.
I found a short while ago some of the last wild flowers, while returning from the front line. I have slipped them into my letters that are about to go. Oh! you who will receive these flowers will never know what one can suffer here!
Deep in Eparges mud, sixty yards from the enemy----
"Look here, my friend, you know very well it is forbidden to wrap the legs in sandbags----"
"These sandbags cost the Government more than ten _sous_ a piece----"
"It is not permitted to waste material destined for the trenches."
"Ah! general, it is all that you see here: the mud, the dirt, the bugs, with trampled boxes of _singe_ and sardines under foot. This damned soil, which--which smells bad--general, all this is filth!"[17]