hey
look so nice.... It's strange, but I have two children, too, only one's
a boy. I lay down on the ground beside him--I was all in--and listened
to the machine-guns tapping put, put, put, put, put, all round. I wished
I'd let him kill me instead. That was funny, wasn't it?"

"It's idiotic to feel like that. Put them to the bayonet, all of them,
the dirty Boches. Why, the only money I've had since the war began,
except my five sous, was fifty francs I found on a German officer. I
wonder where he got it, the old corpse-stripper."

"Oh, it's shameful! I am ashamed of being a man. Oh, the shame, the
shame ..." The other man buried his face in his hands.

"I wish they were serving out gniolle for an attack right now," said the
Alsatian, "or the gniolle without the attack 'd be better yet."

"Wait here," said Martin, "I'll go round to the cope and get a bottle of
fizzy. We'll drink to peace or war, as you like. Damn this rain!"

* * * * *

"It's a shame to bury those boots," said the sergeant of the
stretcher-bearers.

From the long roll of blanket on the ground beside the hastily-dug grave
protruded a pair of high boots, new and well polished as if for parade.
All about the earth was scarred with turned clay like raw wounds, and
the tilting arms of little wooden crosses huddled together, with here
and there a bent wreath or a faded bunch of flowers.

Overhead in the stripped trees a bird was singing.

"Shall we take them off? It's a shame to bury a pair of boots like
that."

"So many poor devils need boots."

"Boots cost so dear."

Already two men were lowering the long bundle into the grave.

"Wait a minute; we've got a coffin for him."

A white board coffin was brought.

The boots thumped against the bottom as they put the big bundle in.

An officer strode into the enclosure of the graveyard, flicking his
knees with a twig.

"Is this Lieutenant Dupont?" he asked of the sergeant.

"Yes, my lieutenant."

"Can you see his face?" The officer stooped and pulled apart the blanket
where the head was.

"Poor Rene," he said. "Thank you. Good-bye," and strode out of the
graveyard.

The yellowish clay fell in clots on the boards of the coffin. The
sergeant bared his head and the aumonier came up, opening his book with
a vaguely professional air.

"It was a shame to bury those boots. Boots are so dear nowadays," said
the sergeant, mumbling to himself as he walked back towar