but very disquieting news (which afterwards proved untrue);
and we had to face a possible retirement. You may imagine our state of mind,
unable to get anything sure in the uncertainty, except that
we should stick out as long as the guns would fire, and we could fire them.
That sort of night brings a man down to his "bare skin", I promise you.
The night was very cold, and not a cheerful one.


Sunday, May 9th, 1915.

At 4 we were ordered to get ready to move, and the Adjutant picked out
new retirement positions; but a little later better news came,
and the daylight and sun revived us a bit. As I sat in my dugout
a little white and black dog with tan spots bolted in over the parapet,
during heavy firing, and going to the farthest corner began to dig furiously.
Having scraped out a pathetic little hole two inches deep,
she sat down and shook, looking most plaintively at me. A few minutes later,
her owner came along, a French soldier. Bissac was her name,
but she would not leave me at the time. When I sat down a little later,
she stole out and shyly crawled in between me and the wall;
she stayed by me all day, and I hope got later on to safe quarters.

Firing kept up all day. In thirty hours we had fired 3600 rounds,
and at times with seven, eight, or nine guns; our wire cut and repaired
eighteen times. Orders came to move, and we got ready. At dusk
we got the guns out by hand, and all batteries assembled at a given spot
in comparative safety. We were much afraid they would open on us,
for at 10 o'clock they gave us 100 or 150 rounds, hitting the trench parapet
again and again. However, we were up the road, the last wagon
half a mile away before they opened. One burst near me,