"Only your elbow? Lucky fellow! We were beginning to be afraid it might be serious."
"What! Isn't it enough?"
"Off you go now, old man. You have played and won; there's nothing more you can do here."
His thoughts fly to his wife, and he sighs—
"We were so gay and lively at the Gare Saint-Lazare!"
"You must tell us about it to-morrow. What are you complaining of when you'll soon be on your way to see her again?"
Each one of us thinks—
"I should be quite content to escape as cheaply as Buche has done."
Naturally those badly wounded say very little, even when they succeed in reaching us.
The order comes to advance towards another trench we can just make out, even farther forward. Lying flat amongst the beetroots, we crawl along like serpents. No one is either gay or sad or over-excited even. Maxence, a huge fellow, is the only one who proceeds on all-fours.