"It's not worth while to make-believe about it," says one of them
banteringly. "I'm staying here this time. It's finished--my bowels
are shot through. If I were in a hospital, in a town, they'd operate
on me in time, and it might stick up again. But here! It was
yesterday I got it. We're two or three hours from the Bethune
road, aren't we? And how many hours, think you, from the road to an
ambulance where they can operate? And then, when are they going to
pick us up? It's nobody's fault, I dare say; but you've got to look
facts in the face. Oh, I know it isn't going to be any worse from
now than it is, but it can't be long, seeing I've a hole all the way
through my parcel of guts. You, your foot'll get all right, or
they'll put you another one on. But I'm going to die."
"Ah!" said the other, convinced by the reasoning of his neighbor.
The latter goes on--"Listen, Dominique. You've led a bad life. You
cribbed things, and you were quarrelsome when drunk. You've dirtied
your ticket in the police register, properly."
"I can't say it isn't true, because it is," says the other; "but
what have you got to do with it?"
"You'll lead a bad life again after the war, inevitably; and then
you'll have bother about that affair of the cooper."
The other becomes fierce and aggressive. "What the hell's it to do
with you? Shut your jaw!"
"As for me, I've no more family than you have. I've nobody, except
Louise--and she isn't a relation of mine, seeing we're not married.
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