"I am going back to my billet now," Fitzgerald said, and asked: "Where are you going?" There was a moment's hesitation before the stranger replied, saying: "I'm going to the next village."
Fitzgerald could now see that the man was dressed as an English soldier in a khaki uniform, a rifle over his shoulder and a bandolier round his chest. Germans often disguise themselves as British soldiers, Jean Lacroix said....
"What do you belong to?" Fitzgerald asked, stepping off after the momentary halt. The man accompanied him.
"The Army Service Corps," he answered readily enough, but his accent struck Fitzgerald as being strangely unfamiliar; in his low guttural tones there was something foreign. English could not have been his mother tongue. For a while there was silence, but suddenly as if overcome by a sense of embarrassment due to the silence, the man spoke.
"Have you been long in France?" he asked.
"I have been here for some time," Fitzgerald answered.
"What is your regiment?"
Being warned against giving any information to strangers, Fitzgerald gave an evasive reply.
"Oh, a line regiment," he said.
The man chuckled. "Looks like it," he said. "Are you billeted here?"