"I was bringing it to the little captain. He's a nice little old chap, the little captain, and he loves good wine."
"Bordeaux?"
"Can't you smell it? It's Medoc, 1900, from my own vines.... Look, taste it, there's still a little." He held up the neck of the bottle and Martin took a sip.
The artilleryman drank the rest of it, twisted his long moustaches and heaved a deep sigh.
"Go there, my poor good old wine." He threw the remnants of the bottle into the underbrush. Shrapnel burst a little down the road. "Oh, this is a dirty business! I am a Gascon.... I like to live." He put a dirty brown hand on Martin's arm.
"How old do you think I am?"
"Thirty-five."
"I am twenty-four. Look at the picture." From a tattered black note-book held together by an elastic band he pulled a snapshot of a jolly-looking young man with a fleshy face and his hands tucked into the top of a wide, tightly-wound sash. He looked at the picture, smiling and tugging at one of his long moustaches. "Then I was twenty. It's the war." He shrugged his shoulders and put the picture carefully back into his inside pocket. "Oh, it's idiotic!"
"You must have had a tough time."
"It's just that people aren't meant for this sort of thing," said the artilleryman quietly. "You don't get accustomed. The more you see the worse it is. Then you end by going crazy. Oh, it's idiotic!"