Hundreds of Russians stood about together outside, in strange, poor, scraped-together clothes, just as they had come from Germany, peering at Fanny in silence through the open doorway.
"But I thought these were liberated prisoners from Germany?"
"Don't ask me!" said the little man disgustedly. "I wish to heaven they were all back in Germany. Look at me! I've fought in the Somme, the Aisne, and Verdun, and now at the end of the war I'm left here to look after these pigs!"
A sergeant entered. "A man to take the prisoner in the fourth cell up to the doctor," he said sharply.
"It's not my turn," said the little man, aggrieved that the eye of the sergeant should so rest on him. "It's yours!" he said to the man on the bench beside him. "It's yours!" replied this man to the next.
"Yes, it's Chaumet's! Yes, it's Chaumet's, va-t'en!" they all said, and a man with a cast in his eye got up slowly, grumbling, and turned towards the door.
"Here, dress yourself!"
"What, to take a … to the doctor?"
He pulled his belt and gun off the rack with an ill-will and disappeared, buckling it on.
"You have Russians in cells, too?"