occasional thin pine wood, and the entire division, with its
interminable train at its heels, turned and twisted in and out among
the trees, sinking ankle deep in the yielding sand at every step. It
seemed as if the cheerless waste would never end; all that they met
was a flock of very lean sheep, guarded by a big black dog.

It was about four o'clock when at last the 106th halted for the night
at Dontrien, a small village on the banks of the Suippe. The little
stream winds among some pretty groves of trees; the old church stands
in the middle of the graveyard, which is shaded in its entire extent
by a magnificent chestnut. The regiment pitched its tents on the left
bank, in a meadow that sloped gently down to the margin of the river.
The officers said that all the four corps would bivouac that evening
on the line of the Suippe between Auberive and Hentregiville,
occupying the intervening villages of Dontrien, Betheniville and
Pont-Faverger, making a line of battle nearly five leagues long.

Gaude immediately gave the call for "distribution," and Jean had to
run for it, for the corporal was steward-in-chief, and it behooved him
to be on the lookout to protect his men's interests. He had taken
Lapoulle with him, and in a quarter of an hour they returned with some
ribs of beef and a bundle of firewood. In the short space of time
succeeding their arrival three steers of the herd that followed the
column had been knocked in the head under a great oak-tree, skinned,
and cut up. Lapoulle had to return for bread, which the villagers of
Dontrien had been baking all that afternoon in their ovens. There was
really no lack of anything on that first day, setting aside wine and
tobacco, with which the troops were to be obliged to dispense during
the remainder of the campaign.