"I did not wait to count, my colonel."
"I will tell you, then; six escaped, out of thirty-eight—most remarkable rifle-fire I remember seeing. It sounded almost like a mitrailleuse at work. How many in your patrol? Five? Remarkable! Remarkable! Eh bien, good day, sergeant."
"He was a type not too severe," remarked the ex-corporal, in telling the tale; "in short, un bon garçon."
This is the highest compliment a poilu can pay his officer; in fact, I once heard an ancient Territorial say it irreverently of Marshal Joffre, whom he had known in younger days, somewhere in the Orient.
Jean is at home in several languages, speaking perfectly French, German, Italian, and Spanish. I usually chat with him in the last, as in it I get the fine points of his narrative better than in French. His German was the means of getting him into an adventure such as very few men in the war have experienced. I cannot, of course, vouch for the truth of what follows, but I have no reason to doubt his word, and know him to be capable of any foolhardy rashness. Such a thing would be impossible at the present time.
One dark night, shortly after midnight Jean—on a solitary patrol—was lying just outside the wire, about ten metres from the German trench, listening to locate the sentries. There was a faint starlight. Suddenly a whisper came from beyond the wire, a low voice speaking in broken French.
"Why do you lie so quiet, my friend? I saw you crawl up and have watched you ever since. I don't want to shoot you; I am a Bavarian."
"Good-evening, then," Jean whispered back in his perfect German.
"So," said the sentry, "you speak our language. Wait a moment, till I warn the rest of my squad, and I will show you the way through the wire; there are no officers about at this hour."