Wooden Crosses | Page 2

in an old dragoon's cap; and Broucke, "the lad from oop north," who
had cut puttees for himself out of green rep curtains.

Sulphart alone had remained aloof out of dignity, perched upon a cask,
where he was peeling potatoes with the serious, concentrated air he
always assumed to go through the simplest acts of everyday existence.
Scratching in his flaming bristle beard, he turned his head with a
negligent air, and gazed with affected nonchalance at one of the three
newcomers, a quite young fellow with a sullen look, beardless or
clean-shaven--impossible to tell which--wearing a fine fancy kŽpi and
laden with a broad satchel made of moleskin.
"He's a real dandy lad, with his little cap like a cat's-meat dish!" scoffed
Sulphart first of all half to himself.
Then as the other set down his kit, he discovered the satchel. Then he
broke out.
"Hi! old boy!" he exclaimed; "did you have your little game-bag made
special to order for going up into the trenches? If you had a stray idea
that the Boches wouldn't mark you down as much as you wanted, you
might perhaps have brought along a little flag and tootled on a
trumpet."
The new chum had straightened himself up, annoyed, with a frown
making a bar across his obstinate little forehead. But all at once, put out
of countenance by the jeering attitude of the old hand, he turned his
head away and started to blush. The redhead was quite satisfied with
his flattering success for his joke. He descended from his lofty throne,
and, just to prove that he had no intention of savaging a comrade who
was not responsible, he shifted his strictures higher up to the military
powers whose every act and deed, according to him, were dictated by
pure foolishness and a manifest desire to harass the soldier-man.
"I'm not saying this for you--you don't know any better yet--but those
idiots that make you rub the dixies up with sabre-paste so that they may
shine better. Do you fancy they don't all deserve to be shot?... Do they
think we don't make a good enough target without that? Here, chuck us
over your bag. I'll blacken it with burnt cork, and will run your bottles,
your dixies, and the whole bag o' tricks through straw smoke--there's
nothing better than that."

Lemoine, who was never more than a single pace away from Sulphart,
shrugged his shoulders slowly.
"You're never going to drive these poor blighters daft already with your
flash patter," said he reproachfully in his slow, dragging voice. "Let
them alone, anyway, till they at least get well off the train."
The newcomer of the white satchel had taken his seat on a wheelbarrow.
He seemed quite exhausted. Black runnels of sweat had traced
bracketing lines from his temples to the lower part of his cheeks. He
unrolled his puttees but did not venture to take off his boots--fine
shooting-boots with extra wide welts.
"My heel is all skinned," he said to me. "My boot must be full of blood.
I'm carrying such a weight."
Lemoine weighed his kit.
"That's a heavy one for sure," said he. "What on earth have you
managed to bung into it?... Have you been putting in paving-stones?"
"Just what I was told to put in."
"It's the cartridges that weigh heavy," put in the corporal. "How many
did they give you?"
"Two hundred and fifty.... but I haven't got them in my pack."
"Where are they, then?"
"In my satchel. You see, I like it better like that. Suppose we were
attacked all of a sudden."
"Attacked?"
The others stared at him in amazement. Then they all started to laugh
with one accord, a huge laugh that they exaggerated still further,
stifling, gesticulating, exchanging heavy slaps on the shoulder like
caresses delivered with washerwomen's beetles.

"Attacked.... that's what he said! There's a bloke that's got them
again!..."
"No, no. He's got the wind up..."
"Attacked, that's what he said.... He's crazy.... Put the dogs on him!..."
This vast candour made us laugh till we were like to choke. Papa
Hamel laughed till he cried. Fouillard, for his part, was not laughing.
He shrugged his shoulders, hostile all at once, already looking askance
at this soldier who was much too clean and who spoke much too
politely.
"A lad with dibs who means to come them over us," said he to
Sulphart.
The redhead, bent only on talking more than anybody else, was
considering the newcomer with compassion.
"But, my poor lad," said he, "you don't really suppose we are fighting
that way now? That was all right for the first month. We don't fight any
more now--maybe you'll never be fighting."
"Sure enough," said Lemoine, backing him up, "you won't fight; but
you'll jabber about it