“Look out!” says Paradis hurriedly, “there he is!  We ought not to have stayed here.”

But we stay all the same, irresolutely wavering, as Mesnil Joseph comes straight up to us.  Never did he seem so frail to us.  We can see his pallor afar off, his oppressed and unnatural expression; he is bowed as be walks, and goes slowly, borne down by endless fatigue and his immovable notion.

“What’s the matter with your face?” he asks me—­he has seen me point out to Paradis the possible entry of the bullet.  I pretend not to understand and then make some kind of evasive reply.  All at once I have a torturing idea—­the smell!  It is there, and there is no mistaking it.  It reveals a corpse; and perhaps he will guess rightly

It seems to me that he has suddenly smelt the sign—­the pathetic, lamentable appeal of the dead.  But he says nothing, continues his solitary walk, and disappears round the corner.

“Yesterday,” says Paradis to me, “be came just here, with his mess-tin full of rice that he didn’t want to eat.  Just as if he knew what he was doing, the fool stops here and talks of pitching the rest of his food over the bank, just on the spot where—­where the other was.  I couldn’t stick that, old chap.  I grabbed his arm just as he chucked the rice into the air, and it flopped down here in the trench.  Old man, he turned round on me in a rage and all red in the face, ‘What the hell’s up with you now?’ he says.  I looked as fat-headed as I could, and mumbled some rot about not doing it on purpose.  He shrugs his shoulders, and looks at me same as if I was dirt.  He goes off, saying to himself, ’Did you see him, the blockhead?’ He’s bad-tempered, you know, the poor chap, and I couldn’t complain.  ‘All right, all right,’ he kept saying; and I didn’t like it, you know, because I did wrong all the time, although I was right.”

We go back together in silence and re-enter the dugout where the others are gathered.  It is an old headquarters post, and spacious.  Just as we slide in, Paradis listens.  “Our batteries have been playing extra hell for the last hour, don’t you think?”

I know what he means, and reply with an empty gesture, “We shall see, old man, we shall see all right!”

In the dug-out, to an audience of three, Tirette is again pouring out his barrack-life tales.  Marthereau is snoring in a corner; he is close to the entry, and to get down we have to stride over his short legs, which seem to have gone back into his trunk.  A group of kneeling men around a folded blanket are playing with cards—­

“My turn!”—­“40, 42—­48—­49!—­Good!”

“Isn’t he lucky, that game-bird; it’s imposs’, I’ve got stumped three times I want nothing more to do with you.  You’re skinning me this evening, and you robbed me the other day, too, you infernal fritter!”—­“What did you revoke for, mugwump?”—­“I’d only the king, nothing else.”

“All the same,” murmurs some one who is eating in a corner, “this Camembert, it cost twenty-five sous, but you talk about muck!  Outside there’s a layer of sticky glue, and inside it’s plaster that breaks.”