We stood in the long stables all together, very hurriedly saddling and bridling and knotting up the traces behind.  A few lanterns gave us an imperfect light.  We hurried because it was a pride to be the first battery, and in the French service, rightly or wrongly, everything in the artillery is made for speed, and to speed everything is sacrificed.  So we made ready in the stable and brought our horses out in order before the guns in the open square of quarters.  The high plateau on which the barracks stood was touched with a last late frost, and the horses coming out of the warm stables bore the change ill, lifting their heads and stamping.  A man could not leave the leaders for a moment, and, while the chains were hooked on, even my middle horses were restive and had to be held.  My hands stiffened at the reins, and I tried to soothe both my beasts, as the lantern went up and down wherever the work was being done.  They quieted when the light was taken round behind by the tumbrils, where two men were tying on the great sack of oats exactly as though we were going on campaign.

These two horses of mine were called Pacte and Basilique.  Basilique was saddled; a slow beast, full of strength and sympathy, but stupid and given to sudden fears.  Pacte was the led horse, and had never heard guns.  It was prophesied that when first I should have to hold him in camp when we were practising he would break everything near him, and either kill me or get me cells.  But I did not believe these prophecies, having found my Ancient and all third-year men too often to be liars, fond of frightening the younger recruits.  Meanwhile Pacte stood in the sharp night, impatient, and shook his harness.  Everything had been quickly ordered.

We filed out of quarters, passed the lamp of the guard, and saw huddled there the dozen or so that were left behind while we were off to better things.  Then a drawn-out cry at the head of the column was caught up all along its length, and we trotted; the metal of shoes and wheel-rims rang upon the road, and I felt as a man feels on a ship when it leaves harbour for great discoveries.

We had climbed the steep bank above St. Martin, and were on the highest ridge of land dominating the plain, when the sky first felt the approach of the sun.  Our backs were to the east, but the horizon before us caught a reflection of the dawn; the woods lost their mystery, and one found oneself marching in a partly cultivated open space with a forest all around.  The road ran straight for miles like an arrow, and stretched swarmingly along it was the interminable line of guns.  But with the full daylight, and after the sun had risen in a mist, they deployed us out of column into a wide front on a great heath in the forest, and we halted.  There we brewed coffee, not by batteries, but gun by gun.

Warmed by this little meal, mere coffee without sugar or milk, but with a hunk left over from yesterday’s bread and drawn stale from one’s haversack (the armies of the Republic and of Napoleon often fought all day upon such sustenance, and even now, as you will see, the French do not really eat till a march is over—­and this may be a great advantage in warfare)—­warmed, I say, by this little meal, and very much refreshed by the sun and the increasing merriment of morning, we heard the first trumpet-call and then the shouted order to mount.