ttle strapped-up eyes burned with
fever in the enormous dump of rags set upon his shoulders. "That's
good," he says, drinking.

"Ah! And then, too," he added, emptying--as politeness requires--the
drop of wine that remained at the bottom of Farfadet's cup, "we got two
Boches. They were crawling about outside, and fell into our holes, as
blindly as moles into a spring snare, those chaps did. We tied 'em up.
And see us then--after firing for thirty-six hours, we'd no more
ammunition. So we filled our magazines with the last, and waited, in
front of the parcels of Boche. The liaison chap forgot to tell his
people that we were there. You, the 6th, forgot to ask for us; the 18th
forgot us, too; and as we weren't in a listening-post where you're
relieved as regular as if at H.Q., I could almost see us staying there
till the regiment came back. In the long run, it was the loafers of the
204th, come to skulk about looking for fuses, that mentioned us. So
then we got the order to fall back--immediately, they said. That
'immediately' was a good joke, and we got into harness at once. We
untied the legs of the Boches, led them off and handed them over to the
204th, and here we are."

"We even fished out, in passing, a sergeant who was piled up in a hole
and didn't dare come out, seeing he was shell-shocked. We slanged him,
and that set him up a bit, and he thanked us. Sergeant Sacerdote he
called himself."

"But your wound, old chap?"

"It's my ears. Two shells, a little one and a big one, my lad--went off
while you're saying it. My head came between the two bursts, as you
might say, but only just; a very close shave, and my lugs got it."

"You should have seen him," says Fouillade, "it was disgusting, those
two ears hanging down. We had two packets of bandages, and the
stretcher-men fired us one in. That makes three packets he's got rolled
round his nut."

"Give us your traps, we're going back."

Farfadet and I divide Volpatte's equipment between us. Fouillade,
sullen with thirst and racked by stiff joints, growls, and insists
obstinately on keeping his weapons and bundles.

We stroll back, finding diversion--as always--in walking without ranks.
It is so uncommon that one finds it surprising and profitable. So it is
a breach of liberty which soon enlivens all four of us. We are in the
country as though for the pleasure of it.

"We are pedestrians!" says Volpatte proudly. When we reach the turning
at the top of the hill