now and then a dripping
camion passed along the road, slithering through the mud.

"This is the last summer of the war.... It must be," said the little man
with large brown eyes and a childish, chubby brown face, who sat on
Martin's left.

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. Everyone feels like that."

"I don't see," said Martin, "why it shouldn't last for ten or twenty
years. Wars have before...."

"How long have you been at the front?"

"Six months, off and on."

"After another six months you'll know why it can't go on."

"I don't know; it suits me all right," said the man on the other side of
Martin, a man with a jovial red rabbit-like face. "Of course, I don't
like being dirty and smelling and all that, but one gets accustomed to
it."

"But you are an Alsatian; you don't care."

"I was a baker. They're going to send me to Dijon soon to bake army
bread. It'll be a change. There'll be wine and lots of little girls.
Good God, how drunk I'll be; and, old chap, you just watch me with the
women...."

"I should just like to get home and not be ordered about," said the
first man. "I've been lucky, though," he went on; "I've been kept most
of the time in reserve. I only had to use my bayonet once."

"When was that?" asked Martin.

"Near Mont Cornelien, last year. We put them to the bayonet and I was
running and a man threw his arms up just in front of me saying, 'Mon
ami, mon ami,' in French. I ran on because I couldn't stop, and I heard
my bayonet grind as it went through his chest. I tripped over something
and fell down."

"You were scared," said the Alsatian.

"Of course I was scared. I was trembling all over like an old dog in a
thunderstorm. When I got up, he was lying on his side with his mouth
open and blood running out, my bayonet still sticking into him. You know
you have to put your foot against a man and pull hard to get the bayonet
out."

"And if you're good at it," cried the Alsatian, "you ought to yank it
out as your Boche falls and be ready for the next one. The time they
gave me the Croix de Guerre I got three in succession, just like at
drill."

"Oh, I was so sorry I had killed him," went on the other Frenchman.
"When I went through his pockets I found a post-card. Here it is; I have
it." He pulled out a cracked and worn leather wallet, from which he took
a photograph and a bunch of pictures. "Look, this photograph was there,
too. It hurt my heart. You see, it's a woman and two little girls. T