not found
him because he was too near!

Between this derelict dead in its unnatural solitude and the men who
inhabited the dug-out there was only a slender partition of earth, and
I realize that the place in it where I lay my head corresponds to the
spot buttressed by this dreadful body.

I withdraw my face from the peep-hole and Paradis and I exchange
glances. "Mustn't tell him yet," my companion whispers. "No, we
mustn't, not at once--" "I spoke to the captain about rooting him out,
and he said, too, 'we mustn't mention it now to the lad.'" A light
breath of wind goes by. "I can smell it!"--"Rather!" The odor enters
our thoughts and capsizes our very hearts.

"So now," says Paradis, "Joseph's left alone, out of six brothers. And
I'll tell you what--I don't think he'll stop long. The lad won't take
care of himself--he'll get himself done in. A lucky wound's got to drop
on him from the sky, otherwise he's corpsed. Six brothers--it's too
bad, that! Don't you think it's too bad?" He added, "It's astonishing
that he was so near us."

"His arm's just against the spot where I put my head."

"Yes," says Paradis, "his right arm, where there's a wrist-watch."

The watch--I stop short--is it a fancy, a dream? It seems to me--yes, I
am sure now--that three days ago, the night when we were so tired out,
before I went to sleep I heard what sounded like the ticking of a watch
and even wondered where it could come from.

"It was very likely that watch you heard all the same, through the
earth," says Paradis, whom I have told some of my thoughts; "they go on
thinking and turning round even when the chap stops. Damn, your own
ticker doesn't know you--it just goes quietly on making little circles."

I asked, "There's blood on his hands; but where was he hit?"

"Don't know; in the belly, I think; I thought there was something dark
underneath him. Or perhaps in the face--did you notice the little stain
on the cheek?"

I recall the hairy and greenish face of the dead man. "Yes, there was
something on the cheek. Yes, perhaps it went in there--"

"Look out!" says Paradis hurriedly, "there he is! We ought not to have
stayed here."

But we stay all the same, irresolutely wavering, as Mesnil Joseph comes
straight up to us. Never did he seem so frail to us. We can see his
pallor afar off, his oppressed and unnatural expression; he is bowed as
be walks, and goes slowly, borne down by endless fatigue and his
immovable notion.

"Wh