about four o'clock
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 .