But when that shell fell I had gone into the trench to
ask the time. I found my rifle, that I'd left in my place, bent
double, as if some one had folded it in his hands, the barrel like a
corkscrew, and half of the stock in sawdust. The smell of fresh
blood was enough to bring your heart up."
"And Mondain--him, too?"
"Mondain--that was the day after, yesterday in fact, in a dug-out
that a shell smashed in. He was lying down, and his chest was
crushed. Have they told you about Franco, who was alongside Mondain?
The fall of earth broke his spine. He spoke again after they'd got
him out and set him down. He said, with his head falling to one
side, 'I'm dying,' and he was gone. Vigile was with them, too; his
body wasn't touched, but they found him with his head completely
flattened out, flat as a pancake, and huge-as big as that. To see it
spread out on the ground, black and distorted, it made you think of
his shadow--the shadow one gets on the ground sometimes when one
walks with a lantern at night."
"Vigile--only Class 1913--a child! And Mondain and Franco--such good
sorts, in spite of their stripes. We're so many old special pals the
less, mon vieux Marchal."
"Yes," says Marchal. But he is swallowed up in a crowd of his
friends, who worry and catechise him. He bandies jests with them,
and answers their raillery, and all hustle each other, and laugh.
I look from face to face. They are merry, and in spite of the
contractions of weariness, and the earth-stains, they look
triumphant.
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