He was squatting,
the head hanging forward between the legs, both arms placed on his
knees, his hands hooked and half closed. He was easily
identifiable--so near, so near!--in spite of his squinting and
lightless eyes, by the mass of his muddy beard and the distorted
mouth that revealed the teeth. He looked as if he were both smiling
and grimacing at his rifle, stuck straight up in the mud before him.
His outstretched hands were quite blue above and scarlet underneath,
crimsoned by a damp and hellish reflection.
It was he, rain-washed and besmeared with a sort of scum, polluted
and dreadfully pale, four days dead, and close up to our embankment
into which the shell-hole where he had burrowed had bitten. We had
not found him because he was too near!
Between this derelict dead in its unnatural solitude and the men who
inhabited the dug-out there was only a slender partition of earth,
and I realize that the place in it where I lay my head corresponds
to the spot buttressed by this dreadful body.
I withdraw my face from the peep-hole and Paradis and I exchange
glances. "Mustn't tell him yet," my companion whispers. "No, we
mustn't, not at once--" "I spoke to the captain about rooting him
out, and he said, too, we mustn't mention it now to the lad.'" A
light breath of wind goes by. "I can smell it!"--"Rather!" The odor
enters our thoughts and capsizes our very hearts.
"So now," says Paradis, "Joseph's left alone, out of six brothers.
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