come so
scarce toward the end of the second day that those soldiers who had
money paid as high as five sous apiece for them. It was true that the
bugles sounded the call for "distribution"; the corporal had nearly run
his legs off trying to be the first to reach a great shed near the Tour
a Glaire, where it was reported that rations of bread were to be issued,
but on the occasion of a first visit he had waited there three hours and
gone away empty-handed, and on a second had become involved in a
quarrel with a Bavarian. It was well known that the French officers were
themselves in deep distress and powerless to assist their men; had the
German staff driven the vanquished army out there in the mud and rain
with the intention of letting them starve to death? Not the first step
seemed to have been taken, not an effort had been made, to provide for
the subsistence of those eighty thousand men in that hell on earth
that the soldiers subsequently christened Camp Misery, a name that
the bravest of them could never hear mentioned in later days without a
shudder.

On his return from his wearisome and fruitless expedition to the shed,
Jean forgot his usual placidity and gave way to anger.

"What do they mean by calling us up when there's nothing for us? I'll be
hanged if I'll put myself out for them another time!"

And yet, whenever there was a call, he hurried off again. It was inhuman
to sound the bugles thus, merely because regulations prescribed certain
calls at certain hours, and it had another effect that was near breaking
Maurice's heart. Every time that the trumpets sounded the French horses,
that were running free on the other side of the canal, came rushing up
and dashed into the water to rejoin their squadron, as excited at the
well-known sound as they would be at the touch of the spur; but in their
exhausted condition they were swept away by the current and few attained
the shore. It was a cruel sight to see their struggles; they were
drowned in great numbers, and their bodies, decomposing and swelling
in the hot sunshine, drifted on the bosom of the canal. As for those of
them that got to land, they seemed as if stricken with sudden madness,
galloping wildly off and hiding among the waste places of the peninsula.

"More bones for the crows to pick!" sorrowfully said Maurice,
remembering the great droves of horses that he had encountered on
a previous occasion. "If we remain here a few days we shall all be
devouri