The men's cloaks were streaming and hung heavily in stiff folds from their shoulders. Some of them had turned up their capes in order to protect their heads. The gunners stood round about, holding their red hands to the fire.
"Beastly rain! Two days more like this and we shall all get dysentery!"
"I'd rather die of that than be killed by a shell," said Hutin.
"No use trying to make coffee," growled Pelletier. "The fire doesn't give out any heat.... It would take hours."
"It's the wood that won't burn. It only smokes."
"Blow on it, Millon!"
We turned our boot soles to the heat in order to dry them. The rain hissed and spat in the fire.
"All the same," said the trumpeter, "if we hadn't been betrayed things wouldn't have gone like this!"
I grew annoyed.