e facon certai-ai-ne
Qu'ils non pas l'trooo du... bouche.

Auger begins to laugh; everybody laughs. And meanwhile we are bending
over the wounded leg and our work gets on apace.

"Now, repeat," says the Sergeant.

He goes over it again, verse by verse, and Auger accompanies him.

Quand en passant dedans la plai-ai-ne...

Auger stops now and then to make a slight grimace. Sometimes, too, his
voice breaks. He apologises simply:

"I could never sing in tune."

Nevertheless, the song is learnt, more or less, and when the General
comes to visit the hospital, Auger says to him:

"Mon General, I can sing you a fine song."

And he would, the rascal, if the head doctor did not look reprovingly at
him.

It is very dismal, after this, to attend to Gregoire, and to hear him
groaning:

"Ah! don't pull like that. You're dragging out my heart."

I point out that if he won't let us attend to him, he will become much
worse. Then he begins to cry.

"What do I care, since I shall die anyhow?"

He has depressed the orderlies, the stretcher-bearers, everybody. He
does not discourage me; but he gives me a great deal of trouble.

All you gentlemen who meet together to discuss the causes of the war,
the end of the war, the using-up of effectives and the future bases
of society, excuse me if I do not give you my opinion on these grave
questions. I am really too much taken up with the wound of our unhappy
Gregoire.

It is not satisfactory, this wound, and when I look at it, I cannot
think of anything else; the screams of the wounded man would prevent me
from considering the conditions of the decisive battle and the results
of the rearrangement of the map of Europe with sufficient detachment.

Listen: Gregoire tells me he is going to die. I think and believe that
he is wrong. But he certainly will die if I do not take it upon myself
to make him suffer. He will die, because every one is forsaking him. And
he has long ago forsaken himself.

"My dear chap," remarked Auger to a very prim orderly, "it is no
doubt unpleasant to have only one shoe to put on, but it gives one a
chance of saving. And now, moreover, I only run half as much risk of
scratching my wife with my toe-nails in bed as you do. ..."

"Quite so," added the Sergeant; "with Mariette he will caress his good
lady, so to speak."

Auger and the Sergeant crack jokes like two old cronies. The embarrassed
orderly, failing to find a retort, goes away laughing