"I'll bet Plumet has poured down his own gullet my wine ration that
he's supposed to have, and others with it, and he's lying drunk over
there somewhere."
"It's sure and certain"--Marthereau seconds the proposition.
"Ah, the rotters, the vermin, these fatigue men!" Tirloir bellows.
"An abominable race--all of 'em--mucky-nosed idlers! They roll over
each other all day long at the rear, and they'll be damned before
they'll be in time. Ah, if I were boss, they should damn quick take
our places in the trenches, and they'd have to work for a change. To
begin with, I should say, 'Every man in the section will carry
grease and soup in turns.' Those who were willing, of course--"
"I'm confident," cries Cocon, "it's that Pepere that's
keeping the others back. He does it on purpose, firstly, and then,
too, he can't finish plucking himself in the morning, poor lad. He
wants ten hours for his flea-hunt, he's so finicking; and if he
can't get 'em, monsieur has the pip all day."
"Be damned to him," growls Lamuse. "I'd shift him out of bed if only
I was there! I'd wake him up with boot-toe, I'd--"
"I was reckoning, the other day," Cocon went on; "it took him seven
hours forty-seven minutes to come from thirty-one dug-out. It should
take him five good hours, but no longer."
Cocon is the Man of Figures. He has a deep affection, amounting to
rapacity, for accuracy in recorded computation. On any subject at
all, he goes burrowing after statistics, gathers them with the
industry of an insect, and serves them up on any one who will
listen.
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