ir
insistent challenge, ended its temerarious career one dark night by
rushing headlong over the broken arch of a bridge into the chasm
beneath. After that the rigour of our existence was, if anything,
accentuated; much was "defendu," and many things which were still lawful
were not expedient. Every one talked in subdued tones--it was only the
wounded who were gay, gay with an amazing insouciance. True, there were
the picture postcards in the shops--I had forgotten them--nothing more
characteristically _macabre_ have I ever seen. One such I bought one
morning--a lively sketch of a German soldier dragging a child's wooden
horse behind him, and saluting his officer with, "Captain, here is the
horse--I have slain the horseman" ("Mon Gabidaine, ch'ai due le
cavalier, foila le cheval"). It was labelled "Un Heros."

It was at this little town, on a memorable afternoon early in the war,
that I was first admitted to the freedom of the soldiers of France. The
ward was flooded with the soft lambent light of September sunshine, and
it sheltered, I should say, some twenty-three men. Four were playing
cards at the bedside of a cheerful youth, who a few weeks earlier had
answered on tripping feet to the cry of "Garcon!" in a big Paris hotel,
and was now a _sous-officier_ in 321st Regiment, recovering from wounds
received in the thick of the fighting round Muelhausen. He was enjoying
his convalescence. For a waiter to find himself waited upon was, he
confided to me as the orderly brought in the soup, a peculiarly
satisfying experience. Charles Lamb would have agreed with him. Has he
not written that the ideal holiday is to watch another man doing your
own job--particularly if he does it badly? The _sous-officier_ nearly
wept with joy when, a moment later, the orderly upset the soup. With
him was a plumber who was dealing the cards in that leisurely manner
which appears to be one of the principal charms of the plumber's
vocation. A paperhanger studied the wall-paper with a professional eye
while he appropriated his cards. An Alsatian completed the party. In a
distant corner a Turco, wearing his red fez upon his head, sat with his
chin on his knees amid an improvised bivouac of bed-clothes and looked
on uncomprehendingly. The rest smoked cigarettes and toyed with the
voluptuous pages of _La Vie Parisienne_.

The _sous-officier_, being an artiste in his way, had been giving me a
histrionic exhibition of shell-fire. With a long intake