Wooden Crosses | Page 3

all the same."
"You'll never fire a cartridge," prophesied Broucke, the ch'timi with the
child's eyes.
The newcomer made no answer, doubtless thinking that the old hands
were trying to pull his leg. But with his ear cocked, instead of listening
to Sulphart's discourse, he was hearkening to the big gun shaking the
very sky with its big bellow, and he would fain have been over there
already, on the far side of the blue line of hills, in the unknown plain
where they were playing out the game of war with its fragrance of
danger.
. . .

The newcomer introduced himself to me. "Gilbert Demachy.... I was
doing law...."
And I made myself known.
"Jacques Larcher. I am a writer...."
From his first appearance I knew that Gilbert would be my friend; I
knew it at once from his voice, his speech, his ways. Before very long I
was saying "vous" to him, and we talked of Paris. In short, I was
finding someone with whom I could discourse of our books, our
theatres, our cafŽs, of pretty girls breathing perfume. The very names I
was pronouncing made me live over again for a moment all that lost
happiness. I remember that Gilbert, as he sat on his barrow, had his
shoeless feet on a newspaper by way of carpet. We talked on and on
excitedly.
"You remember... Do you remember?..."
The boys gave the newcomers a hand in installing themselves in the
stables where the squad had their sleeping-quarters, and piled their kits
with ours in the manger. When they had finished, Gilbert held out two
five-franc notes to stand drinks.
"That's that coming it over us," growled Fouillard jealous.
The others, full of gratitude, went back to the stable to make ready a
place for the new comrade. They tossed up his straw in armfuls to
freshen it, and made him a ledge round his feet. Broucke had taken
respectful possession of Demachy's rubber pillow, and was amusing
himself by inflating it, like a plaything, with a secret fear of wearing it
out. Those who must needs change place in order to make room for the
others were making the necessary move, and mutually stealing each
other's straw.
"Here, you, big belly," said Fouillard to Bouffioux, "you're to sleep up
above in the loft. Seeing that I'm sleeping just below you, take care you
don't drop down on top of me in the night with your boots on my dial; I

don't sleep too sound."
Sulphart never let go of the newcomer, bewildering him with useless
advice and ridiculous tips, partly from natural good-nature, partly in
return for his standing treat, but most of all to make himself important.
Everybody was gay, as if they had already had their drink; Vairon in
his shirt started to act the strong man in the fair, calling out his patter in
a fat, common voice that had the true smack of the baffler. Ranged all
about him, we took the place of the crowd. Jealous of the hit he was
making, Sulphart took Lemoine by the sleeve.
"Come with me."
"Why the deuce should I go with you?" said Lemoine, always ready to
oppose the redhead before falling in with him.
"Come along!"
Protesting the while, Lemoine followed him to the staircase. The
notary's house, the stable of which we were humbly occupying, was a
handsome rustic habitation with a high cap of slates, corbels of stucco,
and a curiously painted sundial that showed noon precisely on the
stroke of ten o'clock.
It stood to receive its guests at the top of a wide stone stair, and its
newly painted shutters were of the same green as young leaves. They
had remained shut since the beginning of the war. The owners had fled
with the advance of the Germans, without having had time to save
anything, and they had never come back. The baggage-master had at
one time installed his quarters in it, but as a shell one fine morning
opened a new bull's-eye window in the front, he had thought it prudent
to remove himself to the other side of the district.
We had been definitely and specifically forbidden to set foot inside the
house, every door of which was bolted and barred. Morache, the
adjutant, who delighted in spoiling us with this kind of compromise,
had forthwith announced that whoever transgressed the order would get
a dozen bullets in his hide, without counting the coup de gr‰ce to

finish him. That put it in Sulphart's mind to pay a visit to the villa. Now
he knew it in its every nook and corner, delicately opening the doors
with great kicks when an adroit leverage with a bayonet stump proved
insufficient.
He brought Lemoine to the first floor, into a large