“Frightfully good, old man. Awfully sorry, you know, and all that. Are you a blooming general, or something? But I must find horse.”
By some means we succeeded in persuading him that the chase was useless and that it would be better for him to get into our billet and start out next morning, early. We dragged him up the rue des Augustins, to the rue Amiral Courbet. Outside the iron gates I spoke to him warningly:
“You've got to be quiet. There are staff-officers inside...”
“What?... Staff officers?... Oh, my God!”
The boy was dismayed. The thought of facing staff-officers almost sobered him; did, indeed, sober his brain for a moment, though not his legs.
“It's all right,” I said. “Go quietly, and I will get you upstairs safely.”
It was astonishing how quietly he went, hanging on to me. The little colonel was reading The Times in the salon. We passed the open door, and saw over the paper his high forehead puckered with perplexity as to the ways of the world. But he did not raise his head or drop The Times at the sound of our entry. I took the boy upstairs to my room and guided him inside. He said, “Thanks awfully,” and then lay down on the floor and fell into so deep a sleep that I was scared and thought for a moment he might be dead. I went downstairs to chat with the little colonel and form an alibi in case of trouble. An hour later, when I went into my room, I found the boy still lying as I had left him, without having stirred a limb. He was a handsome fellow, with his head hanging limply across his right arm and a lock of damp hair falling across his forehead. I thought of a son of mine, who in a few years would be as old as he, and I prayed God mine might be spared this boy's tragedy... Through the night he slept in a drugged way, but just at dawn he woke up and stretched himself, with a queer little moan. Then he sat up and said:
“Where am I?”
“In a billet at Amiens. You lost your horse last night and I brought you here.”
Remembrance came into his eyes and his face was swept with a sudden flush of shame and agony.