* * * * * *

Something unusual has happened.  For the last three months the sojourn of each unit in the first-line trenches has been four days.  Yet we have now been five days here and there is no mention of relief.  Some rumors of early attack are going about, brought by the liaison men and those of the fatigue-party that renews our rations every other night—­without regularity or guarantee.  Other portents are adding themselves to the whispers of offensive—­the stopping of leave, the failure of the post, the obvious change in the officers, who are serious and closer to us.  But talk on this subject always ends with a shrug of the shoulders; the soldier is never warned what is to be done with him; they put a bandage on his eyes, and only remove it at the last minute.  So, “We shall see.”—­“We can only wait.”

We detach ourselves from the tragic event foreboded.  Is this because of the impossibility of a complete understanding, or a despondent unwillingness to decipher those orders that are sealed letters to us, or a lively faith that one will pass through the peril once more?  Always, in spite of the premonitory signs and the prophecies that seem to be coming true, we fall back automatically upon the cares of the moment and absorb ourselves in them—­hunger, thirst, the lice whose crushing ensanguines all our nails, the great weariness that saps us all.

“Seen Joseph this morning?” says Volpatte.  “He doesn’t look very grand, poor lad.”

“He’ll do something daft, certain sure.  He’s as good as a goner, that lad, mind you.  First chance he has he’ll jump in front of a bullet.  I can see he will.”

“It’d give any one the pip for the rest of his natural.  There were six brothers of ’em, you know; four of ’em killed; two in Alsace, one in Champagne, one in Argonne.  If Andre’s killed he’s the fifth.”

“If he’d been killed they’d have found his body—­they’d have seen it from the observation-post; you can’t lose the rump and the thighs.  My idea is that the night they went on patrol he went astray coming back—­crawled right round, poor devil, and fell right into the Boche lines.”

“Perhaps he got sewn up in their wire.”

“I tell you they’d have found him if he’d been done in; you know jolly well the Boches wouldn’t have brought the body in.  And we looked everywhere.  As long as he’s not been found you can take it from me that he’s got away somewhere on his feet, wounded or unwounded.”

This so logical theory finds favor, and now it is known that Mesnil Andre is a prisoner there is less interest in him.  But his brother continues to be a pitiable object—­“Poor old chap, he’s so young!” And the men of the squad look at him secretly.

“I’ve got a twist!” says Cocon suddenly.  The hour of dinner has gone past and we are demanding it.  There appears to be only the remains of what was brought the night before.

“What’s the corporal thinking of to starve us?  There he is—­I’ll go and get hold of him.  Hey, corporal!  Why can’t you get us something to eat?”—­“Yes, yes—­something to eat!” re-echoes the destiny of these eternally hungry men.