man, "I had forgotten. I will come at once."

He stretched his arms over his head--a tall figure of a man, but bent at
the shoulders, as if all the dreariness of his surroundings had settled
there. He had the stoop of an old man, and the walk. He stepped out of
his room, into the street, and stood a moment in the midday sunshine,
blinking. Then he walked down the village street to the Poste, and
pushed through the dressing-rooms to the dining-room at the rear. The
doctors looked up as he entered. He nodded, but gave no speech back for
their courteous, their cordial greeting. In silence he ate the simple
relishes of sardines and olives. Then the treat of the luncheon was
brought in by the orderly. It was a duckling, taken from a refugee farm,
and done to a brown crisp. The head doctor carved and served it.

"See here," said Watts loudly. He lifted his wing of the duckling where
a dead fly was cooked in with the gravy. He pushed his chair back. It
grated shrilly on the stone floor. He rose.

"Flies," he said, and left the room.

* * * * *

Watts was the guest at the informal trench luncheon. The officers showed
him little favors from time to time, for he had served their wounded
faithfully for many months. It is the highest honor they can pay when
they admit a civilian to the first line of trenches. Shelling from
Westend was mild and inaccurate, going high overhead and falling with a
mutter into the seven-times wrecked and thoroughly deserted houses of
Nieuport village. But the sound of it gave a gentle tingle to the act of
eating. There was occasional rifle fire, the bullet singing close.

"They're improving," said the Commandant, "a fellow reached over the
trench this morning for his Billy-can, and they got him in the hand."

Two Marins cleared away the plank on which bread and coffee and tinned
meat had been served.

The hot August sun cooked the loose earth, and heightened the smells of
food. A swarm of flies poured over the outer rim and dropped down on
squatting men and the scattered commissariat. Watts was sitting at a
little distance from the group. He closed his eyes, but soon began
striking methodically at the settling flies. He fought them with the
right arm and the left in long heavy strokes, patiently, without
enthusiasm. The soldiers brought out a pack of cards, and leaned forward
for the deal. Suddenly Watts rose, lifted his arms above the trench, and
deliberately st