t me so much before as you have done this time."

Then he laughs again.

Lens is not asleep yet, but he is as silent as usual. He has scarcely
uttered twenty words in three weeks.

In a corner, Mehay patiently repeats: "P-A, Pa," and the orderly who is
teaching him to read presses his forefinger on the soiled page.

I make my way towards Croin, Octave. I sit down by the bed in silence.

Croin turns a face half hidden by bandages to me, and puts a leg damp
with sweat out from under the blankets, for fever runs high just at this
time. He too, is silent; he knows as well as I do that he is not going
on well; but all the same, he hopes I shall go away without speaking to
him.

No. I must tell him. I bend over him and murmur certain things.

He listens, and his chin begins to tremble, his boyish chin, which is
covered with a soft, fair down.

Then, with the accent of his province, he says in a tearful, hesitating
voice:

"I have already given an eye, must I give a hand too?"

His one remaining eye fills with tears. And seeing the sound hand, I
press it gently before I go.

VII

When I put my fingers near his injured eye, Croin recoils a little.

"Don't be afraid," I say to him.

"Oh, I'm not afraid!"

And he adds proudly:

"When a chap has lived on Hill 108, he can't ever be afraid of anything
again."

"Then why do you wince?"

"It's just my head moving back of its own accord. I never think of it."

And it is true; the man is not afraid, but his flesh recoils.

When the bandage is properly adjusted, what remains visible of Groin's
face is young, agreeable, charming. I note this with satisfaction, and
say to him:

"There's not much damage done on this side. We'll patch you up so well
that you will still be able to make conquests."

He smiles, touches his bandage, looks at his mutilated arm, seems to
lose himself for a while in memories, and murmurs:

"May be. But the girls will never come after me again as they used
to..."

VIII

"The skin is beginning to form over the new flesh. A few weeks more, and
then a wooden leg. You will run along like a rabbit."

Plaquet essays a little dry laugh which means neither yes nor no, but
which reveals a great timidity, and something else, a great anxiety.

"For Sundays, you can have an artificial leg. You put a boot on it. The
trouser hides it all. It won't show a bit."

The wounded man shakes his head slightly, and listens with a gentle,
incre