Without thinking if I did
right or wrong, I went up to him and I said, 'Yes, there's me.' The
Boche asks me questions. I tell him my wife's at Lens with her
relations, and the little one, to. He asks where she's staying. I
explain to him, and he says he can see it from there. 'Listen,' he
says, 'I'll take her a letter, and not only that, but I'll bring you
an answer.' Then all of a sudden he taps his forehead, the Boche,
and comes close to me--'Listen, my friend, to a lot better still. If
you like to do what I say, you shall see your wife, and your kids as
well, and all the lot, sure as I see you.' He tells me, to do it,
I've only got to go with him at a certain time with a Boche
greatcoat and a shako that he'll have for me. He'd mix me up in a
coal-fatigue in Lens, and we'd go to our house. I could go and have
a look on condition that I laid low and didn't show myself, and he'd
be responsible for the chaps of the fatigue, but there were
non-coms. in the house that he wouldn't answer for--and, old chap, I
agreed!"
"That was serious."
"Yes, for sure, it was serious. I decided all at once. without
thinking and without wishing to think, seeing I was dazzled with the
idea of seeing my people again; and if I got shot afterwards, well,
so much the worse--but give and take. The supply of law and demand
they call it, don't they?
"My boy, it all went swimmingly. The only hitch was they had such
hard work to find a shako big enough, for, as you know, I'm well off
for head.
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