"Well, what are you up to? This is a nice state of affairs." I reproached them.
"We recognised you, Sergeant!"
"That doesn't matter, you ought to have made me halt."
"But as we recognised you!"
It was impossible to get them to alter their opinion. As for the last two sentries, they simply "about-turned" on the spot; that is to say, that at the first suspicious sound they fired on the picket.
I saw how unhinged and overwrought they were, and had pity on them. I ended by promising to say nothing about it to the subaltern.
I found the latter on his knees. He had spread out his map, which was beginning to get torn, and was saying to Guillaumin that we should do no more than screen Metz; the chief thing was to push straight on to Mayence, the key to the whole of the Rhine district.
The rain stopped, and some time passed. Towards four o'clock Henriot shyly suggested:
"Would it bore you frightfully to go out with a patrol party?"