And thus, though their rifles are all alike, they are as different as their handwriting.

* * * * * *

“It’s curious and funny,” says Marthereau to me “we’re going up to the trenches to-morrow, and there’s nobody drunk yet, nor that way inclined.  Ah, I don’t say,” he concedes at once, “but what those two there aren’t a bit fresh, nor a little elevated; without being absolutely blind, they’re somewhat boozed, pr’aps—­”

“It’s Poitron and Poilpot, of Broyer’s squad.”

They are lying down and talking in a low voice.  We can make out the round nose of one, which stands out equally with his mouth, close by a candle, and with his hand, whose lifted finger makes little explanatory signs, faithfully followed by the shadow it casts.

“I know how to light a fire, but I don’t know how to light it again when it’s gone out,” declares Poitron.

“Ass!” says Poilpot, “if you know how to light it you know how to relight it, seeing that if you light it, it’s because it’s gone out, and you might say that you’re relighting it when you’re lighting it.”

“That’s all rot.  I’m not mathematical, and to hell with the gibberish you talk.  I tell you and I tell you again that when it comes to lighting a fire, I’m there, but to light it again when it’s gone out, I’m no good.  I can’t speak any straighter than that.”

I do not catch the insistent retort of Poilpot, but—­“But, you damned numskull,” gurgles Poitron, “haven’t I told you thirty times that I can’t?  You must have a pig’s head, anyway!”

Marthereau confides to me, “I’ve heard about enough of that.”  Obviously he spoke too soon just now.

A sort of fever, provoked by farewell libations, prevails in the wretched straw-spread hole where our tribe—­some upright and hesitant, others kneeling and hammering like colliers—­is mending, stacking, and subduing its provisions, clothes, and tools.  There is a wordy growling, a riot of gesture.  From the smoky glimmers, rubicund faces start forth in relief, and dark hands move about in the shadows like marionettes.  In the barn next to ours, and separated from it only by a wall of a man’s height, arise tipsy shouts.  Two men in there have fallen upon each other with fierce violence and anger.  The air is vibrant with the coarsest expressions the human ear ever hears.  But one of the disputants, a stranger from another squad, is ejected by the tenants, and the flow of curses from the other grows feebler and expires.

“Same as us,” says Marthereau with a certain pride, “they hold themselves in!”

It is true.  Thanks to Bertrand, who is possessed by a hatred of drunkenness, of the fatal poison that gambles with multitudes, our squad is one of the least befouled by wine and brandy.

They are shouting and singing and talking all around.  And they laugh endlessly, for in the human mechanism laughter is the sound of wheels that work, of deeds that are done.