tched them come with tears of
impotent rage on his cheeks. Battalion after battalion they passed
by--big, confident Germans who jeered at the peasants, and who sang as
they plodded over the _pave_. Once, when a company was halted beneath
him, while the officers went in to the Faisan d'Or across the road, to
see what they could loot in the way of drinks, the ex-sergeant aimed
carefully at the captain, but he put down his rifle without firing.

At last, late in the afternoon when the dusk was beginning to hide the
southern hills, Jules Lemaire's waiting came to an end. A large motor
car drew up outside the inn, and a general with three officers of his
staff got out into the road. One of the officers spread a map on the old
door bench--where Jules Lemaire had so often sat of an evening and told
of his adventures in the war--and, while an orderly went to procure wine
for them, the four Germans bent over the plan of the country they
thought to conquer.

Suddenly a shot rang out from the church tower above them. The general
fell forward on to the bench, while his blood and his wine mingled in a
staining stream that ran across the map of invincible France, and
dripped down on to the dust below.

* * * * *

They met Jules Lemaire coming down the spiral steps of the church tower,
his rifle still in his hand. They hit him with their rifle butts, they
tied him up with part of the bell rope, and propped him up against the
church wall.

Just before they fired, Jules Lemaire caught sight of Madame Nolan, who
stood, terrified and weeping, at the doorway of the inn.

"You see," he shouted to her, "I also, I have helped my country. I was
not too old after all."

And he died with a smile on his face.

XXII

THE SING-SONG

As soon as the battalion marches back from the trenches to the village
in the first light of the morning, everyone turns his mind to methods
which will help the few days of rest to pass as pleasantly as war and
the limited amusements afforded by two estaminets and a row of cottages
will permit.

"Chacun son gout." As he tramps along the street, B Company
Sergeant-Major challenges Corporal Rogers to a boxing match on the
morrow; Second Lieutenant White, who is new to war, sits in his billet
and, by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, traces the distance to
the nearest town on the off chance that he will get leave to visit it;
the doctor demands of his new landlad