Seated on a broken box, I was doing my best to write a letter, while
Major B. and my brother officers O. and F., together with Captain de
G., of the third squadron, took their seats at a rickety table and
began a game of bridge. Here, by the way, is a thing passing the
understanding of the profane, I mean the non-bridge player. This is
the extraordinary, I might almost say the immoderate, attraction which
the initiated find in this game, even at the height of a campaign.
What inexhaustible joys it must offer to make its adepts profit by the
briefest moments of respite in a battle to settle down anywhere and
anyhow and give themselves up to their mysterious practices!

I pause for a moment in my letter-writing to enjoy the sight, which
has its special charm. Two or three kilometres off, towards
Steenstraate, the cannon were working away furiously, while only a few
paces from our shanty a section of our 75's was firing incessantly
over the wood upon Bixschoote; overhead we heard the unpleasant roar
of the big German shells; and in the midst of the racket I saw my
bridge players dragging their table over to the broken window. Day was
dying, and we had not seen a gleam of sunshine since morning. The sky
was grey--a thick, dirty grey; it seemed to be very low, close upon
us, and I felt that the night would come by slow degrees without any
of those admirable symphonies of colour that twilight sometimes brings
to battlefields, making the combatant feel that he is ending his day
in apotheosis.

But those four seemed to hear nothing. In the grey light I watched the
refined profile of the Major bending over the cards just dealt by F.
He no doubt has to speak first, for the three others looked at him, in
motionless silence, as if they were expecting some momentous
utterance. Then suddenly, accompanied by the muffled roar of the