VI
The platoon assembled and joined the rest of the company along the road. They marched off in the darkness, melting in with the immeasurable stream of olive drab that grew at every cross-road.
Up and down the hills they marched, evenly wearing away the distance that lay between themselves and their destination. In the night there were no directions, no cool and mysterious little cafés to draw their attention from placing one foot after the other. Marching at night, Hicks thought, was much easier than marching in the daytime, provided that it was not too dark and the roads were not too slippery. Everything was serene. And it remained so until the man behind you stepped on your heel or until a small, carnivorous louse, a yellow one with a large black speck in the middle of its back, commenced to crawl under your arm or upon your chest. But after fifteen or twenty kilometres, marching even at night was oppressive.
At the bottom of the millionth valley they passed through, lay the town. Along the road, leading up the hill on the other side, horizon-blue motor-trucks stood and waited.
The platoon came to a halt in one of the streets, the butts of their rifles clattering on the cobblestones. It had been quite dark a moment ago, but dawn had come hurriedly, and now Hicks could see the great number of troops that were preparing to embark.
He turned to Lepere, a confessed virgin and the only person in the platoon who boasted of it. “It will be hours before our turn comes. Let’s sneak off somewhere and lie down.”
“Oh, no,” Lepere decisively answered. “You can’t tell how soon we’ll be called. And then we may get into trouble.”
“You’ll probably get into trouble if you go up to the front, too. You’d better go up to the company commander and tell him you’re sick.”
Lepere failed to reply, and Hicks, glancing around, noticed that the officers were not in sight.