“There are some bad boys,” says Lamuse, “among the shirkers, that find a way of keeping something in the company wagon or the medical van.  I know one that’s got two shirts and a pair of drawers in an adjutant’s canteen [note 2]—­but, you see, there’s two hundred and fifty chaps in the company, and they’re all up to the dodge and not many of ’em can profit by it; it’s chiefly the non-coms.; the more stripes they’ve got, the easier it is to plant their luggage, not forgetting that the commandant visits the wagons sometimes without warning and fires your things into the middle of the road if he finds ’em in a horse-box where they’ve no business—­Be off with you!—­not to mention the bully-ragging and the clink.”

“In the early days it was all right, my boy.  There were some chaps—­I’ve seen ’em—­who stuck their bags and even their knapsacks in baby-carts and pushed ’em along the road.”

“Ah, not half!  Those were the good times of the war.  But all that’s changed.”

Volpatte, deaf to all the talk, muffled in his blanket as if in a shawl which makes him look like an old witch, revolves round an object that lies on the ground.  “I’m wondering,” lie says, addressing no one, “whether to take away this damned tin stove.  It’s the only one in the squad and I’ve always carried it.  Oui, but it leaks like a cullender.”  He cannot decide, and makes a really pathetic picture of separation.

Barque watches him obliquely, and makes fun of him.  We hear him say, “Senile dodderer!” But he pauses in his chaffing to say, “After all, if we were in his shoes we should be equally fatheaded.”

Volpatte postpones his decision till later.  “I’ll see about it in the morning, when I’m loading the camel’s back.”

After the inspection and recharging of pockets, it is the turn of the bags, and then of the cartridge-pouches, and Barque holds forth on the way to make the regulation two hundred cartridges go into the three pouches.  In the lump it is impossible.  They must be unpacked and placed side by side upright, head against foot.  Thus can one cram each pouch without leaving any space, and make himself a waistband that weighs over twelve pounds.

Rifles have been cleaned already.  One looks to the swathing of the breech and the plugging of the muzzle, precautions which trench-dirt renders indispensable.

How every rifle can easily be recognized is discussed.  “I’ve made some nicks in the sling.  See, I’ve cut into the edge.”

“I’ve twisted a bootlace round the top of the sling, and that way, I can tell it by touch as well as seeing.”

“I use a mechanical button.  No mistake about that.  In the dark I can find it at once and say, ’That’s my pea-shooter.  Because, you know, there are some boys that don’t bother themselves; they just roll around while the pals are cleaning theirs, and then they’re devilish quick at putting a quiet fist on a popgun that’s been cleaned; and then after they’ve even the cheek to go and say, ’Mon capitaine, I’ve got a rifle that’s a bit of all right.’  I’m not on in that act.  It’s the D system, my old wonder—­a damned dirty dodge, and there are times when I’m fed up with it, and more.”