He becomes loquacious.  It is a low fever that inspires his dissertation, and condenses it to the slow swing of our walk, in which his step is already jaunty.

“They’ll stick a red label on my greatcoat, you’ll see, and take me to the rear.  I shall be bossed this time by a very polite sort of chap, who’ll say to me, ’That’s one side, now turn the other way—­so, my poor fellow.’  Then the ambulance, and then the sick-train, with the pretty little ways of the Red Cross ladies all the way along, like they did to Crapelet Jules, then the base hospital.  Beds with white sheets, a stove that snores in the middle of us all, people with the special job of looking after you, and that you watch doing it, regulation slippers—­sloppy and comfortable—­and a chamber-cupboard.  Furniture!  And it’s in those big hospitals that you’re all right for grub!  I shall have good feeds, and baths.  I shall take all I can get hold of.  And there’ll be presents—­that you can enjoy without having to fight the others for them and get yourself into a bloody mess.  I shall have my two hands on the counterpane, and they’ll do damn well nothing, like things to look at—­like toys, what?  And under the sheets my legs’ll be white-hot all the way through, and my trotters’ll be expanding like bunches of violets.”

Volpatte pauses, fumbles about, and pulls out of his pocket, along with his famous pair of Soissons scissors, something that he shows to me:  “Tiens, have you seen this?”

It is a photograph of his wife and two children.  He has already shown it to me many a time.  I look at it and express appreciation.

“I shall go on sick-leave,” says Volpatte, “and while my ears are sticking themselves on again, the wife and the little ones will look at me, and I shall look at them.  And while they’re growing again like lettuces, my friends, the war, it’ll make progress—­the Russians—­one doesn’t know, what?” He is thinking aloud, lulling himself with happy anticipations, already alone with his private festival in the midst of us.

“Robber!” Feuillade shouts at him.  “You’ve too much luck, by God!”

How could we not envy him?  He would be going away for one, two, or three months; and all that time, instead of our wretched privations, he would be transformed into a man of means!

“At the beginning,” says Farfadet, “it sounded comic when I heard them wish for a ‘good wound.’  But all the same, and whatever can be said about it, I understand now that it’s the only thing a poor soldier can hope for if he isn’t daft.”

* * * * * *

We were drawing near to the village and passing round the wood.  At its corner, the sudden shape of a woman arose against the sportive sunbeams that outlined her with light.  Alertly erect she stood, before the faintly violet background of the wood’s marge and the crosshatched trees.  She was slender, her head all afire with fair hair, and in her pale face we could see the night-dark caverns of great eyes.  The resplendent being gazed fixedly upon us, trembling, then plunged abruptly into the undergrowth and disappeared like a torch.