folded it in his hands,
the barrel like a corkscrew, and half of the stock in sawdust. The
smell of fresh blood was enough to bring your heart up."

"And Mondain--him, too?"

"Mondain--that was the day after, yesterday in fact, in a dug-out that
a shell smashed in. He was lying down, and his chest was crushed. Have
they told you about Franco, who was alongside Mondain? The fall of
earth broke his spine. He spoke again after they'd got him out and set
him down. He said, with his head falling to one side, 'I'm dying,' and
he was gone. Vigile was with them, too; his body wasn't touched, but
they found him with his head completely flattened out, flat as a
pancake, and huge-as big as that. To see it spread out on the ground,
black and distorted, it made you think of his shadow--the shadow one
gets on the ground sometimes when one walks with a lantern at night."

"Vigile--only Class 1913--a child! And Mondain and Franco--such good
sorts, in spite of their stripes. We're so many old special pals the
less, mon vieux Marchal."

"Yes," says Marchal. But he is swallowed up in a crowd of his friends,
who worry and catechise him. He bandies jests with them, and answers
their raillery, and all hustle each other, and laugh.

I look from face to face. They are merry, and in spite of the
contractions of weariness, and the earth-stains, they look triumphant.

What does it mean? If wine had been possible during their stay in the
first line, I should have said, "All these men are drunk."

I single out one of the survivors, who hums as he goes, and steps in
time with it flippantly, as hussars of the stage do. It is Vanderborn,
the drummer.

"Hullo, Vanderborn, you look pleased with yourself!" Vanderborn, who is
sedate in the ordinary, cries, "It's not me yet, you see! Here I am!"
With a mad gesticulation he serves me a thump on the shoulder. I
understand.

If these men are happy in spite of all, as they come out of hell, it is
because they are coming out of it. They are returning, they are spared.
Once again the Death that was there has passed them over. Each company
in its turn goes to the front once in six weeks. Six weeks! In both
great and minor matters, fighting soldiers manifest the philosophy of
the child. They never look afar, either ahead or around. Their thought
strays hardly farther than from day to day. To-day, every one of those
men is confident that he will live yet a little while.

And that is why, in spite of the