Their spirits rose again when they made their midday halt in a field of stubble, where the men could seat themselves on their unslung knapsacks and refresh themselves with a bite.  The large square biscuits could only be eaten by crumbling them in the soup, but the little round ones were quite a delicacy, light and appetizing; the only trouble was that they left an intolerable thirst behind them.  Pache sang a hymn, being invited thereto, the squad joining in the chorus.  Jean smiled good-naturedly without attempting to check them in their amusement, while Maurice, at sight of the universal cheerfulness and the good order with which their first day’s march was conducted, felt a revival of confidence.  The remainder of the allotted task of the day was performed with the same light-hearted alacrity, although the last five miles tried their endurance.  They had abandoned the high road, leaving the village of Prosnes to their right, in order to avail themselves of a short cut across a sandy heath diversified by an 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.

Upon Jean’s return he found Chouteau engaged in raising the tent, assisted by Pache; he looked at them for a moment with the critical eye of an old soldier who had no great opinion of their abilities.