“Did he suffer much?”

“Well, Sir, it was pretty bad sometimes; hard on the boy, just at the first.  You see he wasn’t used to it, like us.”

“You come from the country?”

“I was labourer on a farm.  You have to live with the beasts, and you get to be like ’em.  But it is the truth I tell you now, Sir, that men do treat each other worse than the beasts.  ‘Be kind to the animals.’  That was on a notice a joker stuck up in our trench....  But what isn’t good enough for them is good enough for us.  All right; I’m not kicking.  Things are like that.  We have to take it as it comes.  But you could see that the little Sergeant had never been up against it before; the rain and the mud, and the meanness; the dirt worst of all, everything that you touch, your food, your skin, full of vermin....  He came close to crying, I could see, once or twice, when he was new to it.  I wouldn’t let on that I noticed, for the boy was proud, didn’t want any help, but I would jolly him, try to cheer him up, lend him a hand sometimes; he was glad to get it.  You see you have to get together.  But before long he could stick it out as well as anybody; then it was his turn to help me.  I never heard him squeal, and we had gay times together—­must have a joke now and then, no matter what happens.  It keeps off bad luck.”

Clerambault sat and listened with a heavy heart.

“Was he happier towards the last?” he asked.

“Yes, Sir, I think he was what you call resigned, just like we all were.  I don’t know how it is, but you all seem to start out with the same foot in the morning.  We are all different, but somehow, after a while it seems as if we were growing alike.  It’s better, too, that way.  You don’t mind things so much all in a bunch....  It’s only when you get leave, and after you come back—­it’s bad, nothing goes right any more.  You ought to have seen the little Sergeant that last time.”

Clerambault felt a pang as he said quickly: 

“When he came back?”

“He was very low.  I don’t know as I ever saw him so bad before.”

An agonised expression came over Clerambault’s face, and at his gesture, the wounded man who had been looking at the ceiling while he talked, turned his eyes and understood, for he added at once: 

“He pulled himself together again, after that.”

“Tell me what he said to you, tell me everything,” said Clerambault again taking his hand.

The sick man hesitated and answered.

“I don’t think I just remember what he said.”  Then he shut his eyes, and lay still, while Clerambault bent over him and tried to see what was before those eyes under their closed lids.

* * * * *