“You can see a little blood on the ground if you look,” said a stooping soldier.

“There was the whole ceremonial,” another went on, “from A to Z—­the colonel on horseback, the degradation; then they tied him to the little post, the cattle-stoup.  He had to be forced to kneel or sit on the ground with a similar post.”

“It’s past understanding,” said a third, after a silence, “if it wasn’t for the example the sergeant spoke about.”

On the post the soldiers had scrawled inscriptions and protests.  A croix de guerre, cut clumsily of wood, was nailed to it, and read:  “A.  Cajard, mobilized in August, 1914, in gratitude to France.”

Returning to quarters I met Volpatte, still surrounded and talking.  He was relating some new anecdotes of his journey among the happy ones.

______

[note 1:] I have altered the name of this soldier as well as that of the village.—­H.  B.

11

The Dog

The weather was appalling.  Water and wind attacked the passers-by; riddled, flooded, and upheaved the roads.

I was returning from fatigue to our quarters at the far end of the village.  The landscape that morning showed dirty yellow through the solid rain, and the sky was dark as a slated roof.  The downpour flogged the horse-trough as with birchen rods.  Along the walls. human shapes went in shrinking files, stooping, abashed, splashing.

In spite of the rain and the cold and bitter wind, a crowd had gathered in front of the door of the barn where we were lodging.  All close together and back to back, the men seemed from a distance like a great moving sponge.  Those who could see, over shoulders and between heads, opened their eyes wide and said, “He has a nerve, the boy!” Then the inquisitive ones broke away, with red noses and streaming faces, into the down-pour that lashed and the blast that bit, and letting the hands fall that they had upraised in surprise, they plunged them in their pockets.

In the center, and running with rain, abode the cause of the gathering—­Fouillade, bare to the waist and washing himself in abundant water.  Thin as an insect, working his long slender arms in riotous frenzy, he soaped and splashed his head, neck, and chest, down to the upstanding gridirons of his sides.  Over his funnel-shaped cheeks the brisk activity had spread a flaky beard like snow, and piled on the top of his head a greasy fleece that the rain was puncturing with little holes.

By way of a tub, the patient was using three mess-tins which he had filled with water—­no one knew how—­in a village where there was none; and as there was no clean spot anywhere to put anything down in that universal streaming of earth and sky, he thrust his towel into the waistband of his trousers, while the soap went back into his pocket every time he used it.

They who still remained wondered at this heroic gesticulation in the face of adversity, and said again, as they wagged their heads, “It’s a disease of cleanliness he’s got.”