Tirette continues the story of his major:  “Behold one day they’d served us at the barracks with some suetty soup.  Old man, a disease, it was!  So a chap asks to speak to the captain, and holds his mess-tin up to his nose.”

“Numskull!” some one shouts in the other corner.  “Why didn’t you trump, then?”

“‘Ah, damn it,’ said the captain, ’take it away from my nose, it positively stinks.’”

“It wasn’t my game,” quavers a discontented but unconvinced voice.

“And the captain, he makes a report to the major.  But behold the major, mad as the devil, he butts in shaking the paper in his paw:  ‘What’s this?’ he says.  ’Where’s the soup that has caused this rebellion, that I may taste it?’ They bring him some in a clean mess-tin and he sniffs it.  ‘What now!’ he says, ’it smells good.  They damned well shan’t have it then, rich soup like this!’”

“Not your game!  And he was leading, too!  Bungler!  It’s unlucky, you know.”

“Then at five o’clock as we were coming out of barracks, our two marvels butt in again and plank themselves in front of the swaddies coming out, trying to spot some little thing not quite so, and he said, ’Ah, my bucks, you thought you’d score off me by complaining of this excellent soup that I have consumed myself along with my partner here; just wait and see if I don’t get even with you.  Hey, you with the long hair, the tall artist, come here a minute!’ And all the time the beast was jawing, his bag-o’-bones—­as straight and thin as a post—­went ‘oui, oui’ with her head.”

“That depends; if he hadn’t a trump, it’s another matter.”

“But all of a sudden we see her go white as a sheet, she puts her fist on her tummy and she shakes like all that, and then suddenly, in front of all the fellows that filled the square, she drops her umbrella and starts spewing!”

“Hey, listen!” says Paradis, sharply, “they’re shouting in the trench.  Don’t you hear?  Isn’t it ‘alarm!’ they’re shouting?”

“Alarm?  Are you mad?”

The words were hardly said when a shadow comes in through the low doorway of our dug-out and cries—­“Alarm, 22nd!  Stand to arms!”

A moment of silence and then several exclamations.  “I knew it,” murmurs Paradis between his teeth, and he goes on his knees towards the opening into the molehill that shelters us.  Speech then ceases and we seem to be struck dumb.  Stooping or kneeling we bestir ourselves; we buckle on our waist-belts; shadowy arms dart from one side to another; pockets are rummaged.  And we issue forth pell-mell, dragging our knapsacks behind us by the straps, our blankets and pouches.

Outside we are deafened.  The roar of gunfire has increased a hundredfold, to left, to right, and in front of us.  Our batteries give voice without ceasing.

“Do you think they’re attacking?” ventures a man.  “How should I know?” replies another voice with irritated brevity.