the poilus, add this comment on the order: "This is Divisional
Headquarters. However many there are of you, don't show yourselves.
Keep under cover. If the General sees you in the street, he will have
you put to fatigues at once. He must not see a single soldier. Stay
where you are all day in your quarters. Do what you like as long as no
one sees you--no one!"

We go back into the barn.

* * * * *

Two o'clock. It is three hours yet, and then it will be totally dark,
before one may risk going outside without being punished.

Shall we sleep while waiting? Fouillade is sleepy no longer; the hope
of wine has shaken him up. And then, if one sleeps in the day, he will
not sleep at night. No! To lie with your eyes open is worse than a
nightmare. The weather gets worse; wind and rain increase, without and
within.

Then what? If one may not stand still, nor sit down, nor lie down, nor
go for a stroll, nor work--what?

Deepening misery settles on the party of benumbed and tired soldiers.
They suffer to the bone, nor know what to do with their bodies. "Nom de
Dieu, we're badly off!" is the cry of the derelicts--a lamentation, an
appeal for help.

Then by instinct they give themselves up to the only occupation
possible to them in there--to walk up and down on the spot, and thus
ward off anchylosis.

So they begin to walk quickly to and fro in the scanty place that three
strides might compass; they turn about and cross and brush each other,
bent forward, hands pocketed--tramp, tramp. These human beings whom the
blast cuts even among their straw are like a crowd of the wretched
wrecks of cities who await, under the lowering sky of winter, the
opening of some charitable institution. But no door will open for
them--unless it Le four days hence, one evening at the end of the rest,
to return to the trenches.

Alone in a corner, Cocon cowers. He is tormented by lice; but weakened
by the cold and wet he has not the pluck to change his linen; and he
sits there sullen, unmoving--and devoured.

As five o'clock draws near, in spite of all, Fouillade begins again to
intoxicate himself with his dream of wine, and he waits, with its gleam
in his soul. What time is it?--A quarter to five.--Five minutes to
five.--Now!

He is outside in black night. With great splashing skips he makes his
way towards the tavern of Magnac, the generous and communicative
Biterrois. Only with great trouble does he find the door