Wooden Crosses | Page 8

over the cask of wine, which they were tapping to make sure that it was properly full, those who were waiting their turn were arguing as to the number of bidons that would fall to each squad, and some of them were already clamouring that that wasn't their proper figure. Lentils were given out, sweet potatoes, coffee in the berry. Taken by surprise, Demachy remarked:
"But we have no coffee-mill."
The others stared at him and laughed. Behind the group someone bellowed:
"You can go on enjoying yourselves! That's the lad they send to get the rations for a whole squad!"
It was Sulphart, who had come out of curiosity, just to look on. Heavily embarrassed, his cap full of sugar, his pockets stuffed with coffee, his bag weighed down full of lentils, Gilbert was at his wit's end, with no notion where he could put his rice. As everybody was laughing round him, and the quartermaster shouting, "Come along, here's your lot; don't you want to have it to eat?" he lost his head and emptied it anywhere he could --into his bag along with the lentils. Then Sulphart burst out:
"Here, that's a bit too much!... You see the cookie's phiz if he'll like sorting out his rice and his bugs!... Lord, what an army! And they talk. about hoofing the Boches out. What a joke!..."
Thoroughly furious, the new chum turned round, red all over.
"Look here, you shut up. All you had to do was to come here yourself."
Sulphart, without turning a hair, waited for the remainder of the distribution. He watched the corporal on duty throwing down great chunks of meat, some of an appetizing fresh redness, others thickly veined with tallow, on a muddied piece of tent canvas.
"We're going to draw lots for them," said the corporal.
"No!" protested several squads, "there will be some faking about it.... Share it out according to the number of men."
"There are fourteen of us in the second squad; I want that piece."
"And what about us, in the first... ."
All stooping over the stall, hands stretched out, they were disputing in advance over the food, all shouting at once, under the impassive eye of the quartermaster.
"That will do with your howling," he said at last. "I'll distribute it. Third squad.... that piece. Fourth squad... Fifth squad."
He had not time to finish, nor to point out the piece intended with the end of his stick. With a roar Sulphart hurled himself into the group.
"No!" he shouted, "I'm not having any.... You want us all in the squad to die of hunger. They're taking advantage of its being a lad that isn't up to snuff to do us in the eye."
The others hooted him, the quartermaster would fain have driven him away, but clean beyond all restraint, wildly waving his arms, he shouted louder than them all.
"I won't have that piece at all.... I'll tell the Captain, and I'll tell the Colonel too, if I have to.... It's always the same lot that get the best.... I want my proper share.... The fifth squad is the one with the most men in it...."
"There are only eleven of you."
"That's a lie!... We'll make a complaint.... That's nothing but bone!"
He was uttering cry upon cry, now shrill, now hoarse, now terrifying and now plaintive, thrusting one back and jostling others over. Those who had already been served were hugging their share to their hearts, as the mothers of Bethlehem must have held their babes on the night of Herod's slaughter. By good luck the quartermaster held out a chunk to him, taken at random, and at once he shut up completely, his calm recovered immediately, his anger all harmless and disarmed since he was served. He turned then to Demachy, while the distribution went on.
"You see," he said with a friendly air, "you've got the idea all right, but you don't give tongue enough. If you want to be better served than the others you've got to give tongue, even without knowing anything about anything: that's the only way to have your rights."
Gilbert Demachy listened without any answer, amused by this big brawler with his bristle beard; his attentive silence pleased Sulphart.
"Of course that blockhead of a Br?val never told you to fetch the bucket or the bottles for the pinard. What do you think you're going to carry it back in--in your boots? Good joy I thought something about it. There's a bucket, and I brought a can in case there might be brandy.... It's no matter, a corporal that doesn't go himself to the distribution; you only see that with the fifth.... He stayed behind once more writing to his old woman.... Blitherer!"
Sulphart did not deign to have any truck with the distribution of tins of bully-beef, a commodity for which he had nothing but contempt; but all