“You’ve got your eyes open, eh, Le Bihan? You know that yesterday evening they signaled a submarine.... Quite near....”
“Let it come, Captain. It will see if Le Bihan sleeps on his watch!”
Reaching the ward-room, the officer takes off his cloak, his muffler, his gloves, and puts down his glasses. He nibbles a crust of bread or refreshes himself with a drop of wine. The room is in disorder from the preceding evening, with newspapers left on the red sofas, games on the green tables. One turns the pages mechanically without reading, and shuffles the dominoes and cards without thinking, and before going back to his dull bed, one casts a glance at the betting-book.
22 March.
A happy find, this betting-book, which has banished acrimonious disputes from the Waldeck-Rousseau! For since in this war our prophecies about to-morrow or next week have nothing to base themselves upon, what good does it do to argue? If one of us, through some revelation, acquires a definite opinion on future events, he writes it in this notebook with the date, the hour and the place. The page is divided into two columns, one for, and the other against the prediction; the man who bets proposes the stake. The other signs in the right column or the left, and when the bet falls due, the bad prophets pay up as gracefully as possible. There is no opportunity for contradicting, and it is much more amusing than all the discussions.
30 March.
This morning, towards four o’clock, I signed my name in the column of the most recent bets. Here are the three wagers which interested me:
Friday, March 26. 8.50 A.M. at 38° 11´ N. and 16° 11´ E.
M. X.... bets that within three months Italy will be at war, but not Roumania. Stakes a dinner in Paris in 1917, for which the winner shall choose the restaurant and make up the menu.
The page of this wager is scribbled over with emendations and remarks. The number of signatures in the two columns is equal. The winners will be awkward in their triumph.