bury them--you know, just to the left outside the
abri--they leave lots of their boots around. I can pick up any number I
want." With a clasp-knife he was cutting the leather in a spiral, paring
off a thin lace. He contracted his bushy eyebrows as he bent over his
work. The candlelight glinted on the knife blade as he twisted it about
dexterously.

"Yes, many a good copain of mine has had his poor feet in those boots.
What of it? Some day another fellow will be making laces out of mine,
eh?" He gave a wheezy, coughing laugh.

"I guess I'll take a pair. How much are they?"

"Six sous."

"Good."

The coins glinted in the light of the candle as they clinked in the
man's leather-blackened palm.

"Good-bye," said Martin. He walked past men sleeping in the bunks on
either side as he went towards the steps.

At the end of the dugout the man crouched on his pile of old leather,
with his knife that glinted in the candlelight dexterously carving laces
out of the boots of those who no longer needed them.

CHAPTER XI

There is no sound in the poste de secours. A faint greenish light
filters down from the quiet woods outside. Martin is kneeling beside a
stretcher where lies a mass of torn blue uniform crossed in several
places by strips of white bandages clotted with dark blood. The massive
face, grimed with mud, is very waxy and grey. The light hair hangs in
clots about the forehead. The nose is sharp, but there is a faint smile
about the lips made thin by pain.

"Is there anything I can get you?" asks Martin softly.

"Nothing." Slowly the blue eyelids uncover hazel eyes that burn
feverishly.

"But you haven't told me yet, how's Merrier?"

"A shell ... dead ... poor chap."

"And the anarchist, Lully?"

"Dead."

"And Dubois?"

"Why ask?" came the faint rustling voice peevishly. "Everybody's dead.
You're dead, aren't you?"

"No, I'm alive, and you. A little courage.... We must be cheerful."

"It's not for long. To-morrow, the next day...." The blue eyelids slip
back over the crazy burning eyes and the face takes on again the waxen
look of death.

THE END

PRINTED BY THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX, ENGLAND

End of Project Gutenberg's One Man's Initiation--1917, by John Dos Passos

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