"You savage!" exclaims Verrier. "Doesn't war provide you with sufficient opportunities to satisfy your bloodthirsty instincts? Why should you go and kill tiny birds like these?"
"Don't cry over it; I am going to cook them for you, along with a few slices of bacon...."
To-day, thanks to Jules, we are en famille with the Achains. The little girl, ten years of age, has pretty blue eyes and light hair, confined in a black shawl, like her mother's. She looks at haversacks, rifles, and musettes, and asks in drawling accents—
"Do you really carry all these things on your back?"
Indeed, the haversacks do look of a respectable size: on the top the cover, rolled in the sleeping-bag; to the left, a tent canvas; to the right, a rubber mantle; in the middle, a cooking utensil; inside, linen and tobacco, a thread and needle-case, slippers, a large packet of letters, and reserve provisions. The whole weighs nearly thirty-five pounds. The musettes, too, are of enormous bulk, swollen with provisions, toilet utensils, a ball of bread, evidently so called because it is flat, spirit-flask, knife, fork, and spoon, a tin plate, and lastly a few packets of cartridges. At the bottom is a confused mass of tobacco and matches, bread-crumbs, and earth.
Sergeant Chaboy announces en passant—
"Be ready at five o'clock, my boys. It is the section's turn to act as artillery support at the Montagne farm."
The Germans are beginning to fire upon the village. At four o'clock the bombardment is at its height. Impossible to remain in the streets.
The light begins to fade, and the projectiles become fewer and fewer. The section musters.