Description

With a great pile of packets in front of him like a peddler's pack, the harassed quartermaster was calling out the post in the middle of a regular mob of soldiers, who were all plying their elbows and trampling on one another's feet. It was just at our door, between the communal washhouse -- so tiny that there would hardly have been room for three washerwomen under its sloping shelter roof -- and the notary's house, which wore a red scarf of virginia creeper crosswise on its front. We had clambered up on the stone seat and were listening attentively. "Maurice Duclou, first section." -- "Killed at Courcy," cried somebody. -- "Are you sure?" -- "Yes, his mates saw him fall in front of the church. . . . He'd caught a bullet. Now, . . well, I wasn't there myself." On the corner of the envelope the quartermaster wrote in pencil, "Killed." -- "Edouard Marquette." -- "He must be killed too," said a voice.