ain Florentin had disappeared,
and Sergeant Rabot was in command. He was a little old fellow, thin
and deformed, but as tough as steel; he squinted and seemed to have had
red hair when young. Now, as I speak of him, I seem to hear him say
quietly to us, "The battle is won! by file right! forward, march!"

Several wanted to stop and make some soup, for we had eaten nothing
since noon and began to be hungry. The sergeant marched down the lane
with his musket on his shoulder, laughing quietly, and saying in an
ironical tone:

"Oh! soup, soup! wait a little, the commissary is coming!"

We followed him down the dark lane; about midway we saw a cuirassier on
horseback with his back toward us. He had a sabre cut in the abdomen
and had retired into this lane, the horse leaned against the wall to
prevent him from falling off.

As we filed past he called out, "Comrades!" But nobody even turned his
head.

Twenty paces farther on we found the ruins of a cottage completely
riddled with balls, but half the thatched roof was still there, and
this was why Sergeant Rabot had selected it; and we filed into it for
shelter.

We could see no more than if we had been in an oven; the sergeant
exploded the priming of his musket, and we saw that it was the kitchen,
that the fireplace was at the right, and the stairway on the left.
Five or six Prussians and Frenchmen were stretched on the floor, white
as wax, and with their eyes wide open.

"Here is the mess-room," said the sergeant, "let every one make himself
comfortable. Our bedfellows will not kick us."

As we saw plainly that there were to be no rations, each one took off
his knapsack and placed it by the wall on the floor for a pillow. We
could still hear the firing, but it was far in the distance on the hill.

The rain fell in torrents. The sergeant shut the door, which creaked
on its hinges, and then quietly lighted his pipe. Some of the men were
already snoring when I looked up, and he was standing at the little
window, in which not a pane of glass remained, smoking.

He was a firm, just man, he could read and write, had been wounded and
had his three chevrons, and ought to have been an officer, only he was
not well formed.

He soon laid his head on his knapsack, and shortly after all were
asleep. It was long after this when I was suddenly awakened by
footsteps and fumbling about the house outside.

I raised up on my elbow to listen, when somebody tried to open