m a bit embarrassed at
practising on my friends. It's a relief to meet some one who speaks
perfectly French, as m'sieur."

M'sieur was gratified not to have lost his facility. "But my ear is
getting slower," I said. "For instance, I eavesdropped a while ago when
you were talking about your Huron soldiers, and I got most of what you
said because you spoke English. I doubt if I could if you'd been
speaking French."

The colonel shrugged massive shoulders. "My English is defective but
distinct," he explained. "One is forced to speak slowly when one speaks
badly. Also the Colonel Chichely"--the Britisher--"it is he at whom I
talk carefully. The English ear, it is not imaginative. One must make
things clear. You know the Hurons, then?"

I specified how.

"Ah!" he breathed out. "The men in my command had been, some of them,
what you call guides. They got across to France in charge of troop
horses on the ships; then they stayed and enlisted. Fine soldier stuff.
Hardy, and of resource and of finesse. Quick and fearless as wildcats.
They fit into one niche of the war better than any other material. You
heard the story of my rescue?"

I had not. At that point food had interfered, and I asked if it was too
much that the colonel should repeat.

"By no means," agreed the polite colonel, ready, moreover, I guessed,
for any amount of talk in his native tongue. He launched an epic
episode. "I was hit leading, in a charge, two battalions. I need not
have done that," another shrug--"but what will you? It was snowing; it
was going to be bad work; one could perhaps put courage into the men by
being at their head. It is often the duty of an officer to do more than,
his duty--_n'est-ce-pas?_ So that I was hit in the right knee and the
left shoulder _par exemple_, and fell about six yards from the German
trenches. A place unhealthy, and one sees I could not run away, being
shot on the bias. I shammed dead. An alive French officer would have
been too interesting in that scenery. I assure m'sieur that the
_entr'actes_ are far too long in No Man's Land. I became more and more
displeased with the management of that play as I lay, very badly amused
with my wounds, and afraid to blink an eye, being a corpse. The Huns
demand a high state of immobility in corpses. But I fell happily
sidewise, and out of the extreme corner of the left eye I caught a
glimpse of our sand-bags. One blessed that twist, though it became
enough _ennuyant_, and one w