self in the trenches! Never in
this world! 'I realize, too,' replied an individual, 'that at
thirty-seven I've arrived at the age when I must take care of myself!'
And while the fellow was saying that, I was thinking of Dumont the
gamekeeper, who was forty-two, and was done in close to me on Hill 132,
so near that after he got the handful of bullets in his head, my body
shook with the trembling of his."

"And what were they like with you, these thieves?"

"To hell with me, it was, but they didn't show it too much, only now
and again when they couldn't hold themselves in. They looked at me out
of the corner of their eyes, and took damn good care not to touch me in
passing, for I was still war-mucky.

"It disgusted me a bit to be in the middle of that heap of
good-for-nothings, but I said to myself, 'Come, it's only for a bit,
Firmin.' There was just one time that I very near broke out with the
itch, and that was when one of 'em said, 'Later, when we return, if we
do return.'--NO! He had no right to say that. Sayings like that, before
you let them out of your gob, you've got to earn them; it's like a
decoration. Let them get cushy jobs, if they like, but not play at
being men in the open when they've damned well run away. And you hear
'em discussing the battles, for they're in closer touch than you with
the big bugs and with the way the war's managed; and afterwards, when
you return, if you do return, it's you that'll be wrong in the middle
of all that crowd of humbugs, with the poor little truth that you've
got.

"Ah, that evening, I tell you, all those heads in the reek of the
light, the foolery of those people enjoying life and profiting by
peace! It was like a ballet at the theater or the make-believe of a
magic lantern. There were--there were--there are a hundred thousand
more of them," Volpatte at last concluded in confusion.

But the men who were paying for the safety of the others with their
strength and their lives enjoyed the wrath that choked him, that
brought him to bay in his corner, and overwhelmed him with the
apparitions of shirkers.

"Lucky he doesn't start talking about the factory hands who've served
their apprenticeship in the war, and all those who've stayed at home
under the excuse of National Defense, that was put on its feet in five
secs!" murmured Tirette; "he'd keep us going with them till Doomsday."

"You say there are a hundred thousand of them, flea-bite," chaffed
Barque. "Well, in 19