"Do you think that means that we should—be shot?"
"Exactly! You're lucky to have a platoon like ours!"
"That's true," he said, regaining his self-possession.
I added: "While the first—for instance!"
"Well, well?"
I stopped, and did not give him my reasons.
Playoust had left us, when we started from Neuilly. Surprised by the sudden order transferring him to the ammunition train, he swaggered as he went off. What an escape! He was sure to get through all right now! We had not had the courage to refuse to shake hands with him. Only Guillaumin had warned him:
"Don't you keep us short of ammunition, or you'll hear about it!"
The troop train which had brought us shunted and made way for the next one which disgorged the fifth battalion. The same thing was going on in front of us and behind us. We must be detraining in force, the whole division apparently.
It was about six o'clock when we started off again towards the village lying about a mile and a half away. The guns boomed incessantly behind the rising ground near by. It was only a few hours since Nanteuil had been evacuated by the enemy. I expected the same vision of destruction and smoking ruins which had appalled us so many times near the Meuse. No. The houses were standing and intact; but they had certainly taken their share of plunder. I can recall a grocery shop which had been ransacked. The contents of sacks, drawers, boxes, and bottles, too, formed a swamp on the tiles, into which the shop-woman, when she left her counter—I am not exaggerating—sank up to her waist.