They are showing their riches to each other. "Tiens,
look!"--"Great!" they reply enviously.
What they have not got they want. There are treasures among the
squad long coveted by all; the two-liter water-bottle, for instance,
preserved by Barque, that a skillful rifle-shot with a blank
cartridge has stretched to the capacity of two and a half liters;
and Bertrand's famous great knife with the horn handle.
Among the heaving swarm there are sidelong glances that skim these
curiosities, and then each man resumes "eyes right," devotes himself
to his belongings, and concentrates upon getting it in order.
They are mournful belongings, indeed. Everything made for the
soldier is commonplace, ugly, and of bad quality; from his cardboard
boots, attached to the uppers by a criss-cross of worthless thread,
to his badly cut, badly shaped, and badly sewn clothes, made of
shoddy and transparent cloth--blotting-paper--that one day of
sunshine fades and an hour of rain wets through, to his emaciated
leathers, brittle as shavings and torn by the buckle spikes, to his
flannel underwear that is thinner than cotton, to his straw-like
tobacco.
Marthereau is beside me, and he points to our comrades: "Look at
them, these poor chaps gaping into their bags o' tricks. You'd say
it was a mothers' meeting, ogling their kids. Hark to 'em. They're
calling for their knick-knacks. Tiens, that one, the times he says
'My knife!' same as if be was calling 'Lon,' or 'Charles,' or
'Dolphus.
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