"
"Sixteen," says Salavert.
"Now, blockhead and son of misery, turn my jacket back. You haven't
counted those two pockets. Now then, what more do you want? And yet
they're just in the usual place. They're your civilian pockets,
where you shoved your nose-rag, your tobacco, and the address where
you'd got to deliver your parcel when you were a messenger."
"Eighteen!" says Salavert, as grave as a judge. "There are eighteen,
and no mistake; that's done it."
At this point in the conversation, some one makes a series of noisy
stumbles on the stones of the threshold with the sound of a horse
pawing the ground--and blaspheming. Then, after a silence, the
barking of a sonorous and authoritative voice--"Hey, inside there!
Getting ready? Everything must be fixed up this evening and packed
tight and solid, you know. Going into the first line this time, and
we may have a hot time of it."
"Right you are, right you are, mon adjutant." heedless voices
answer.
"How do you write 'Arnesse'?" asks Benech, who is on all fours, at
work with a pencil and an envelope. While Cocon spells "Ernest" for
him and the voice of the vanished adjutant is heard afar repeating
his harangue, Blaire picks up the thread, and says--
"You should always, my children--listen to what I'm telling you--put
your drinking-cup in your pocket. I've tried to stick it everywhere
else, but only the pocket's really practical, you take my word. If
you're in marching order, or if you've doffed your kit to navigate
the trenches either, you've always got it under your fist when
chances come, like when a pal who's got some gargle, and feels good
towards you says, 'Lend us your cup,' or a peddling wine-seller,
either.
Pages:
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229