with a watchful eye to see whether some limb had not been hurt by a
kick or entangled in its tether.

In the large yard of the abandoned and pillaged farm, where the men
had been billeted they were hurrying to fasten the last buckles and
take their places in the ranks. I quickly swallowed my portion of
insipid lukewarm coffee, brought me by my orderly; then I went to get
my orders from the Captain, who was lodged in the market-square. No
word had yet been received from the Colonel, who was quartered at the
farm of Vadiville, two kilometres off. Patience! We had been used to
these long waits since the army had been pulled up before the
formidable line of trenches which the Germans had dug north of Reims.
They were certainly most disheartening; but it could not be helped,
and it was of no use to complain. I turned and went slowly up the
steep footpath that led to my billet.

Pévy is a poor little village, clinging to the last slopes of a line
of heights that runs parallel to the road from Reims to Paris. Its
houses are huddled together, and seem to be grouped at the foot of the
ridges for protection from the north wind. The few alleys which
intersect the village climb steeply up the side of the hill. We were
obliged to tramp about in the sticky mud of the main road waiting for
our orders.

Passing the church, it occurred to me to go and look inside. Since the
war had begun we had hardly had any opportunity of going into the
village churches we had passed. Some of them were closed because the
parish priests had left for the army, or because the village had been
abandoned to the enemy. Others had served as marks for the artillery,
and now stood in the middle of the villages, ruins loftier and more