Scraps of talk reached him.
“This will be a plume in your cap, Franz.”
“A thousand marks, picked up in a filthy hole like this! Almächtig!”
“What are they? Spies?”
“Didn’t you hear? They stabbed Major Busch with a stable fork. Jolly old Busch—one of the best!”
“And bayoneted two officers of the Westphalian commissariat, wounding a third.”
“The devil! Was there a fight?”
“Some of the fellows said Busch and the others must have been drunk.”
“Quite likely. I was drunk every day then.”
A burst of laughter.