Upon Jean’s return he found Chouteau engaged in raising the tent, assisted by Pache; he looked at them for a moment with the critical eye of an old soldier who had no great opinion of their abilities.
“It will do very well if the weather is fine to-night,” he said at last, “but if it should come on to blow we would like enough wake up and find ourselves in the river. Let me show you.”
And he was about to send Maurice with the large pail for water, but the young man had sat down on the ground, taken off his shoe, and was examining his right foot.
“Hallo, there! what’s the matter with you?”
“My shoe has chafed my foot and raised a blister. My other shoes were worn out, and when we were at Rheims I bought these, like a big fool, because they were a good fit. I should have selected gunboats.”
Jean kneeled and took the foot in his hand, turning it over as carefully as if it had been a little child’s, with a disapproving shake of his head.
“You must be careful; it is no laughing matter, a thing like that. A soldier without the use of his feet is of no good to himself or anyone else. When we were in Italy my captain used always to say that it is the men’s legs that win battles.”
He bade Pache go for the water, no very hard task, as the river was but a few yards away, and Loubet, having in the meantime dug a shallow trench and lit his fire, was enabled to commence operations on his pot-au-feu, which he did by putting on the big kettle full of water and plunging into it the meat that he had previously corded together with a bit of twine, secundum artem. Then it was solid comfort for them to watch the boiling of the soup; the whole squad, their chores done up and their day’s labor ended, stretched themselves on the grass around the fire in a family group, full of tender anxiety for the simmering meat, while Loubet occasionally stirred the pot with a gravity fitted to the importance of his position. Like children and savages, their sole instinct was to eat and sleep, careless of the morrow, while advancing to face unknown risks and dangers.
But Maurice had unpacked his knapsack and come across a newspaper that he had bought at Rheims, and Chouteau asked:
“Is there anything about the Prussians in it? Read us the news!”