“What a funny noise you’re making! D’you do it with your mouth?”
In a hoarse voice he wheezed:
“It is my breath escaping between my ribs.”
And lastly there was Mery, whose spine had been broken by an aerial torpedo, and who “no longer felt the lower part of his body, as if it didn’t belong to him.”
All this little world was living on its back, each in his place, in a promiscuous atmosphere of smells, of sounds, and sometimes of thought. The men recognised each other by their voices rather than by their faces; and there was one great week when Sandrap was seen by Revaud as he was being carried to the dressing-room in a stretcher on a level with the bed, and the latter exclaimed suddenly:
“Hallo! is that you, Sandrap? What a funny head you have got! And your hair is even funnier.”
Mme. Baugan came at eight o’clock, and at once she began scolding:
“There’s a nasty smell about. Oh! Oh! my poor Revaud, I’m sure you have again——”
Revaud avoided the question:
“Very fine, thanks. I’ve slept very well. Nothing more to report. I’ve slept quite well.”