14--do you hear me?--Millerand, the War Minister,
said to the M.P.'s, 'There are no shirkers.'"

"Millerand!" growled Volpatte. "I tell you, I don't know the man; but
if he said that, he's a dirty sloven, sure enough!"

* * * * *

"One is always," said Bertrand, "a shirker to some one else."

"That's true; no matter what you call yourself, you'll
always--always--find worse blackguards and better blackguards than
yourself."

"All those that never go up to the trenches, or those who never go into
the first line, and even those who only go there now and then, they're
shirkers, if you like to call 'em so, and you'd see how many there are
if they only gave stripes to the real fighters."

"There are two hundred and fifty to each regiment of two battalions,"
said Cocon.

"There are the orderlies, and a bit since there were even the servants
of the adjutants."--"The cooks and the under-cooks."--"The
sergeant-majors, and the quartermaster-sergeants, as often as
not."--"The mess corporals and the mess fatigues."--"Some office-props
and the guard of the colors."--"The baggage-masters." "The drivers, the
laborers, and all the section, with all its non-coms., and even the
sappers."--"The cyclists." "Not all of them."--"Nearly all the Red
Cross service."--"Not the stretcher-bearers, of course; for they've not
only got a devilish rotten job, but they live with the companies, and
when attacks are on they charge with their stretchers; but the hospital
attendants."

"Nearly all parsons, especially at the rear. For, you know, parsons
with knapsacks on, I haven't seen a devil of a lot of 'em, have you?"

"Nor me either. In the papers, but not here."

"There are some, it seems."--"Ah!"

"Anyway, the common soldier's taken something on in this war."

"There are others that are in the open. We're not the only ones."

"We are!" said Tulacque, sharply; "we're almost the only ones!"

He added, "You may say--I know well enough what you'll tell me--that it
was the motor lorries and the heavy artillery that brought it off at
Verdun. It's true, but they've got a soft job all the same by the side
of us. We're always in danger, against their once, and we've got the
bullets and the bombs, too, that they haven't. The heavy artillery
reared rabbits near their dug-outs, and they've been making themselves
omelettes for eighteen months. We are really in danger. Those that only
get a bit of it, or only once, aren't