s. When dawn hovers there, weakling and early, the wind for
contrast rushes in and blows round every side with all its strength,
and the squad endures the hustling of an everlasting draught.

When we are there, we remain upright in the ruined obscurity, groping,
shivering, complaining.

Fouillade, who has come in once more, goaded by the cold, regrets his
ablutions. He has pains in his loins and back. He wants something to
do, but what?

Sit down? Impossible; it is too dirty inside there. The ground and the
paving-stones are plastered with mud; the straw scattered for our
sleeping is soaked through, by the water that comes through the holes
and by the boots that wipe themselves with it. Besides, if you sit
down, you freeze; and if you lie on the straw, you are troubled by the
smell of manure, and sickened by the vapors of ammonia. Fouillade
contents himself by looking at his place, and yawning wide enough to
dislocate his long jaw, further lengthened by a goatee beard where you
would see white hairs if the daylight were really daylight.

"The other pals and boys," said Marthereau, "they're no better off than
we are. After breakfast I went to see a jail-bird of the 11th on the
farm near the hospital. You've to clamber over a wall by a ladder
that's too short--talk about a scissor-cut!" says Marthereau, who is
short in the leg; "and when once you're in the hen-run and rabbit-hutch
you're shoved and poked by everybody and a nuisance to 'em all. You
don't know where to put your pasties down. I vamoosed from there, and
sharp."

"For my part," says Cocon, "I wanted to go to the blacksmith's when
we'd got quit of grubbing, to imbibe something hot, and pay for it.
Yesterday he was selling coffee, but some bobbies called there this
morning, so the good man's got the shakes, and he's locked his door."

Lamuse has tried to clean his rifle. But one cannot clean his rifle
here, even if he squats on the ground near the door, nor even if he
takes away the sodden tent-cloth, hard and icy, which hangs across the
doorway like a stalactite; it is too dark. "And then, old chap, if you
let a screw fall, you may as well hang yourself as try to find it,
'specially when your fists are frozen silly."

"As for me, I ought to be sewing some things, but--what cheer!"

One alternative remains--to stretch oneself on the straw, covering the
head with handkerchief or towel to isolate it from the searching stench
of fermenting straw, and sleep