cation, of position, of everything possible, in spite of the former
gulfs that kept us apart, we are in the main alike. Under the same
uncouth outlines we conceal and reveal the same ways and habits, the
same simple nature of men who have reverted to the state primeval.

The same language, compounded of dialect and the slang of workshop and
barracks, seasoned with the latest inventions, blends us in the sauce
of speech with the massed multitudes of men who (for seasons now) have
emptied France and crowded together in the North-East.

Here, too, linked by a fate from which there is no escape, swept
willy-nilly by the vast adventure into one rank, we have no choice but
to go as the weeks and months go--alike. The terrible narrowness of the
common life binds us close, adapts us, merges us one in the other. It
is a sort of fatal contagion. Nor need you, to see how alike we
soldiers are, be afar off--at that distance, say, when we are only
specks of the dust-clouds that roll across the plain.

We are waiting. Weary of sitting, we get up, our joints creaking like
warping wood or old hinges. Damp rusts men as it rusts rifles; more
slowly, but deeper. And we begin again, but not in the same way, to
wait. In a state of war, one is always waiting. We have become
waiting-machines. For the moment it is food we are waiting for. Then it
will be the post. But each in its turn. When we have done with dinner
we will think about the letters. After that, we shall set ourselves to
wait for something else.

Hunger and thirst are urgent instincts which formidably excite the
temper of my companions. As the meal gets later they become grumblesome
and angry. Their need of food and drink snarls from their lips--"That's
eight o'clock. Now, why the hell doesn't it come?"

"Just so, and me that's been pining since noon yesterday," sulks
Lamuse, whose eyes are moist with longing, while his cheeks seem to
carry great daubs of wine-colored grease-paint.

Discontent grows more acute every minute.

"I'll bet Plumet has poured down his own gullet my wine ration that
he's supposed to have, and others with it, and he's lying drunk over
there somewhere."

"It's sure and certain"--Marthereau seconds the proposition.

"Ah, the rotters, the vermin, these fatigue men!" Tirloir bellows. "An
abominable race--all of 'em--mucky-nosed idlers! They roll over each
other all day long at the rear, and they'll be damned before they'll be
in time. Ah, if I were