No, we were not very gay last night as we gathered sorrowfully round our lieutenant's bed.
"So it's decided that you are to go?" I said to him. "Well, there'll be precious little fun in fighting with you away!"
He was suffering much, and made no answer. When, however, the stretcher-bearers came for him, he spoke to us somewhat after the fashion in which Mazarin, on his death-bed, recommended Colbert to the youthful Louis XIV—
"My children, though I have done much for you, I crown all my kindness by leaving you Jules. You have seen him at work; he has every possible vice. Make use of his virtues as well."
Once more we admired the goodness and generosity of our kind chief, whom, alas! we were to lose. Our last words were—
"Thanks for everything. You have been a real brother to us, and we will never forget you."
Then the ambulance carried him off. Immediately afterwards we found Jules in a corner, looking the picture of despair. The lieutenant's departure was for him the end of a dream.
"Come here, Jules. The lieutenant has advised us to take you along. Will you come?"
"Of course," replied Jules. "We shall get along all right. Just now the adjutant asked me if I would do something for him. He did not even look at me! And that, after being the lieutenant's orderly! Naturally I would rather be with you."
With Roberty away, one of the charms of the war has disappeared. Everybody in the section looks troubled and careworn. Never again shall we see his like!