My mind was at that time so acutely affected by the secret that haunted me that, for several days, the question tortured me.
To-day, when the lapse of time enables me to look at things with the necessary perspective, I can state that Dauche was unaware of the calamity awaiting him. In fact, I never saw anything which made me suppose he ever felt a twinge of uneasiness. I cannot recall any word, allusion or weakness which, had he been aware, would not have failed to escape him and reveal to me the depths of his consciousness.
But on one occasion I was again assailed by doubt. A fellow-soldier in my regiment, rescued by the Red Cross, lay dying, fatally wounded in one of these numerous little scraps which have made Hill 108 the open wound of our sector. We went to see him on his death-bed, and at once I hastened to get Dauche away from the room, in which he was inclined to linger.
“He is, after all, better so,” I remarked, to break a painful silence.
“D’you think so? Do you really think so?” the young man replied.
A mysterious impulse, which was not mere chance, made us look into one another’s eyes; and in those of my friend, usually so clear, I was aware of something that quivered, elusive, frantic, like a wreck of a ship lost in the desolate wastes of the sea.
I endeavoured to change the conversation, and I succeeded. Dauche turned back towards life, breathing deeply, and soon breaking into shouts of laughter, in which I joined quite genuinely.
In spite of this alarming incident, I had to recognise that Dauche suspected nothing. What I saw in his eyes that day I would have, without a doubt, surprised in every human look. Moreover, the flesh is aware of things of which the mind is not, and the sharp anguish behind that look was perhaps like one of those mute cries of the animal, which are uttered without the inspiration or recognition of consciousness.
Dauche’s wound was now healed over. Mine required very little attention. There was no difficulty about my recovery. I was waiting for something else. I understood that perfectly when one day Dauche asked me why I remained so long in the fighting zone. I hit upon a reply in which I pleaded our great friendship and that I had few attachments within the country. But when I faced the question myself I saw quite well what was the real motive of my stay at S——. Always I was waiting for that something to happen.