When Maurice took off his shoe that evening to have a look at his foot, which was aching and throbbing feverishly, the skin came with it; the blood spurted forth and he uttered a cry of pain.  Jean was standing by, and exhibited much pity and concern.

“Look here, that is becoming serious; you are going to lie right down and not attempt to move.  That foot of yours must be attended to.  Let me see it.”

He knelt down, washed the sore with his own hands and bound it up with some clean linen that he took from his knapsack.  He displayed the gentleness of a woman and the deftness of a surgeon, whose big fingers can be so pliant when necessity requires it.

A great wave of tenderness swept over Maurice, his eyes were dimmed with tears, the familiar thou rose from his heart to his lips with an irresistible impulse of affection, as if in that peasant whom he once had hated and abhorred, whom only yesterday he had despised, he had discovered a long lost brother.

“Thou art a good fellow, thou!  Thanks, good friend.”

And Jean, too, looking very happy, dropped into the second person singular, with his tranquil smile.

“Now, my little one, wilt thou have a cigarette?  I have some tobacco left.”

V.

On the morning of the following day, the 26th, Maurice arose with stiffened limbs and an aching back, the result of his night under the tent.  He was not accustomed yet to sleeping on the bare ground; orders had been given before the men turned in that they were not to remove their shoes, and during the night the sergeants had gone the rounds, feeling in the darkness to see if all were properly shod and gaitered, so that his foot was much inflamed and very painful.  In addition to his other troubles he had imprudently stretched his legs outside the canvas to relieve their cramped feeling and taken cold in them.

Jean said as soon as he set eyes on him: 

“If we are to do any marching to-day, my lad, you had better see the surgeon and get him to give you a place in one of the wagons.”

But no one seemed to know what were the plans for the day, and the most conflicting reports prevailed.  It appeared for a moment as if they were about to resume their march; the tents were struck and the entire corps took the road and passed through Vouziers, leaving on the right bank of the Aisne only one brigade of the second division, apparently to continue the observation of the Monthois road; but all at once, as soon as they had put the town behind them and were on the left bank of the stream, they halted and stacked muskets in the fields and meadows that skirt the Grand-Pre road on either hand, and the departure of the 4th hussars, who just then moved off on that road at a sharp trot, afforded fresh food for conjecture.

“If we are to remain here I shall stay with you,” declared Maurice, who was not attracted by the prospect of riding in an ambulance.