“Eighteen!” says Salavert, as grave as a judge.  “There are eighteen, and no mistake; that’s done it.”

At this point in the conversation, some one makes a series of noisy stumbles on the stones of the threshold with the sound of a horse pawing the ground—­and blaspheming.  Then, after a silence, the barking of a sonorous and authoritative voice—­“Hey, inside there!  Getting ready?  Everything must be fixed up this evening and packed tight and solid, you know.  Going into the first line this time, and we may have a hot time of it.”

“Right you are, right you are, mon adjutant.” heedless voices answer.

“How do you write ’Arnesse’?” asks Benech, who is on all fours, at work with a pencil and an envelope.  While Cocon spells “Ernest” for him and the voice of the vanished adjutant is heard afar repeating his harangue, Blaire picks up the thread, and says—­

“You should always, my children—­listen to what I’m telling you—­put your drinking-cup in your pocket.  I’ve tried to stick it everywhere else, but only the pocket’s really practical, you take my word.  If you’re in marching order, or if you’ve doffed your kit to navigate the trenches either, you’ve always got it under your fist when chances come, like when a pal who’s got some gargle, and feels good towards you says, ‘Lend us your cup,’ or a peddling wine-seller, either.  My young bucks, listen to what I tell you; you’ll always find it good—­put your cup in your pocket.”

“No fear,” says Lamuse, “you won’t see me put my cup in my pocket; damned silly idea, no more or less.  I’d a sight sooner sling it on a strap with a hook.”

“Fasten it on a greatcoat button, like the gas-helmet bag, that’s a lot better; for suppose you take off your accouterments and there’s any wine passing, you look soft.”

“I’ve got a Boche drinking-cup,” says Barque; “it’s flat, so it goes into a side pocket if you like, or it goes very well into a cartridge-pouch, once you’ve fired the damn things off or pitched them into a bag.”

“A Boche cup’s nothing special,” says Pepin; “it won’t stand up, it’s just lumber.”

“You wait and see, maggot-snout,” says Tirette, who is something of a psychologist.  “If we attack this time, same as the adjutant seemed to hint, perhaps you’ll find a Boche cup, and then it’ll be something special!”

“The adjutant may have said that,” Eudore observes. “but he doesn’t know.”

“It holds more than a half-pint, the Boche cup,” remarks Cocon, “seeing that the exact capacity of the half-pint is marked in the cup three-quarters way up; and it’s always good for you to have a big one, for if you’ve got a cup that only just holds a half-pint, then so that you can get your half-pint of coffee or wine or holy water or what not, it’s get to be filled right up, and they don’t ever do it at serving-out, and if they do, you spill it.”

“I believe you that they don’t fill it,” says Paradis, exasperated by the recollection of that ceremony.  “The quartermaster-sergeant, he pours it with his blasted finger in your cup and gives it two raps on its bottom.  Result, you get a third, and your cup’s in mourning with three black bands on top of each other.”