ereau like a poplar tree, "for sure, my old Caparthe,
certainly. Tiens, there"--and unbending his elbow he makes an
indicative gesture like a flag-signaler--"'Villa von Hindenburg.' and
there, 'Villa Glucks auf.' If that doesn't satisfy you, you gentlemen
are hard to please. P'raps there's a few lodgers in the basement, but
not noisy lodgers, and you can talk out aloud in front of them, you
know!"

"Ah, nom de Dieu!" cried Marthereau a quarter of an hour after we had
established ourselves in one of these square-cut graves, "there's
lodgers he didn't tell us about, that frightful great lightning-rod,
that infinity!" His eyelids were just closing, but they opened again
and he scratched his arms and thighs: "I want a snooze! It appears it's
out of the question. Can't resist these things."

We settled ourselves to yawning and sighing, and finally we lighted a
stump of candle, wet enough to resist us although covered with our
hands; and we watched each other yawn.

The German dug-out consisted of several rooms. We were against a
partition of ill-fitting planks; and on the other side, in Cave No. 2,
some men were also awake. We saw light trickle through the crannies
between the planks and heard rumbling voices. "It's the other section,"
said Marthereau.

Then we listened, mechanically. "When I was off on leave," boomed an
invisible talker, "we had the hump at first, because we were thinking
of my poor brother who was missing in March--dead, no doubt--and of my
poor little Julien, of Class 1915, killed in the October attacks. And
then bit by bit, her and me, we settled down to be happy at being
together again, you see. Our little kid, the last, a five-year-old,
entertained us a treat. He wanted to play soldiers with me, and I made
a little gun for him. I explained the trenches to him; and he, all
fluttering with delight like a bird, he was shooting at me and yelling.
Ah, the damned young gentleman, he did it properly! He'll make a famous
poilu later! I tell you, he's quite got the military spirit!"

A silence; then an obscure murmur of talk, in the midst of which we
catch the name of Napoleon; then another voice, or the same, saying,
"Wilhelm, he's a stinking beast to have brought this war on. But
Napoleon, he was a great man!"

Marthereau is kneeling in front of me in the feeble and scanty rays of
our candle, in the bottom of this dark ill-enclosed hole where the cold
shudders through at intervals, where vermin swarm a