You, who know me fairly well, will
see the irony of it. I am eternally hanging round dans les coulisses, I
am never in the play. I instinctively thought of Captain Simpson, who
had left his brother in the trenches at Saint-Quentin, and still had in
him the kindly sympathy that had helped me so much.
When Amelie returned, she said that every one was out at the Demi-Lune
to watch the troups going to Meaux, and that the boys in the
neighborhood were already swimming the Marne to climb the hill to the
battlefield of Saturday. I had no curiosity to see one scene or the
other. I knew what the French boys were like, with their stern faces,
as well as I knew the English manner of going forward to the day's work,
and the hilarious, macabre spirit of the French untried lads crossing
the river to look on horrors as if it were a lark.
I passed a strangely quiet morning. But the excitement was not all
over. It was just after lunch that Amelie came running down the road to
say that we were to have a cantonnement de regiment on our hill for the
night and perhaps longer--French reinforcements marching out from the
south of Paris; that they were already coming over the crest of the hill
to the south and could be seen from the road above; that the advance
scouts were already here.
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