im. "You've too much luck, by God!"

How could we not envy him? He would be going away for one, two, or
three months; and all that time, instead of our wretched privations, he
would be transformed into a man of means!

"At the beginning," says Farfadet, "it sounded comic when I heard them
wish for a 'good wound.' But all the same, and whatever can be said
about it, I understand now that it's the only thing a poor soldier can
hope for if he isn't daft."

* * * * *

We were drawing near to the village and passing round the wood. At its
corner, the sudden shape of a woman arose against the sportive sunbeams
that outlined her with light. Alertly erect she stood, before the
faintly violet background of the wood's marge and the crosshatched
trees. She was slender, her head all afire with fair hair, and in her
pale face we could see the night-dark caverns of great eyes. The
resplendent being gazed fixedly upon us, trembling, then plunged
abruptly into the undergrowth and disappeared like a torch.

The apparition and its flight so impressed Volpatte that he lost the
thread of his discourse.

"She's something like, that woman there!"

"No," said Fouillade, who had misunderstood, "she's called Eudoxie. I
knew her because I've seen her before. A refugee. I don't know where
she comes from, but she's at Gamblin, in a family there."

"She's thin and beautiful," Volpatte certified; "one would like to make
her a little present--she's good enough to eat--tender as a chicken.
And look at the eyes she's got!"

"She's queer," says Fouillade. "You don't know when you've got her. You
see her here, there, with her fair hair on top, then--off! Nobody
about. And you know, she doesn't know what danger is; marching about,
sometimes, almost in the front line, and she's been seen knocking about
in No Man's Land. She's queer."

"Look! There she is again. The spook! She's keeping an eye on us.
What's she after?"

The shadow-figure, traced in lines of light, this time adorned the
other end of the spinney's edge.

"To hell with women," Volpatte declared, whom the idea of his
deliverance has completely recaptured.

"There's one in the squad, anyway, that wants her pretty badly.
See--when you speak of the wolf--"

"You see its tail--"

"Not yet, but almost--look!" From some bushes on our right we saw the
red snout of Lamuse appear peeping, like a wild boar's.

He was on the woman's trail. He had seen the all