o the light. Illegible and transparent at the
creases, it looks like one of those window-blinds made of squares sewn
together.

"I've some newspaper too"--he unfolds a newspaper article upon
poilus--"and a book"--a twopence-half-penny novel, called Twice a
Maid--"Tiens, another newspaper cutting from the Etampes Bee. Don't
know why I've kept that, but there must be a reason somewhere. I'll
think about it when I have time. And then, my pack of cards, and a set
of draughts, with a paper board and the pieces made of sealing-wax."

Barque comes up, regards the scene, and says, "I've a lot more things
than that in my pockets." He addresses himself to Volpatte. "Have you
got a Boche pay-book, louse-head, some phials of iodine, and a
Browning? I've all that, and two knives."

"I've no revolver," says Volpatte, "nor a Boche pay-book, but I could
have had two knives or even ten knives; but I only need one."

"That depends," says Barque. "And have you any mechanical buttons,
fathead?"

"I haven't any," cries Becuwe.

"The private can't do without 'em," Lamuse asserts. "Without them, to
make your braces stick to your breeches, the game's up."

"And I've always got in my pocket," says Blaire, "so's they're within
reach, my case of rings." He brings it cut, wrapped up in a gas-mask
bag, and shakes it. The files ring inside, and we hear the jingle of
aluminium rings in the rough.

"I've always got string," says Biquet, "that's the useful stuff!"

"Not so useful as nails," says Pepin, and he shows three in his hand,
big, little, and average.

One by one the others come to join in the conversation, to chaffer and
cadge. We are getting used to the half-darkness. But Corporal Salavert,
who has a well-earned reputation for dexterity, makes a banging lamp
with a candle and a tray, the latter contrived from a Camembert box and
some wire. We light up, and around its illumination each man tells what
he has in his pockets, with parental preferences and bias.

"To begin with, how many have we?"

"How many pockets? Eighteen," says some one--Cocon, of course, the man
of figures.

"Eighteen pockets! You're codding, rat-nose," says big Lamuse.

"Exactly eighteen," replies Cocon. "Count them, if you're as clever as
all that."

Lamuse is willing to be guided by reason in the matter, and putting his
two hands near the light so as to count accurately, he tells off his
great brick-red fingers: Two pockets in the back of the greatcoat;