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Updated: May 9, 2025
Chrisfield thought he had never been so comfortable in his life, although his soaked shoes pinched his cold feet and his knees were wet and cold. But in the drowsiness of the rain and of voices talking quietly about him, he fell asleep.
I warn't a damn bit of use.... Hasn't a fellow got any rights at all? Then the M.P.'s started cleanin' up Strasburg after A.W.O.L.'s, an' I beat it out of there, an' Christ, it don't look as if I'd ever be able to get back." "Say, Andy," said Chrisfield, suddenly, "let's go down after some booze." "All right." "Say, Al, do you want me to get you anything at the drug store?" "No.
Chrisfield kept on along the lane, walking fast, feeling full of warmth and strength. The rain beat hard and cold against his back. He walked with his eyes to the ground. A voice in a strange language stopped him. A ragged man in green with a beard that was clotted with mud stood in front of him with his hands up. Chrisfield burst out laughing. "Come along," he said, "quick!"
When next they stopped Chrisfield was on the crest of the hill beside a battery of French seventy-fives. He looked curiously at the Frenchmen, who sat about on logs in their pink and blue shirt- sleeves playing cards and smoking. Their gestures irritated him. "Say, tell 'em we're advancin'," he said to Andrews. "Are we?" said Andrews.
"So long, Andy, ole man.... Ah'll pay for the drinks." Chrisfield was beckoning with his hand to the red-faced woman, who advanced slowly through the candlelight. "Thanks, Chris." Andrews strode away from the door. A cold, needle-like rain was falling. He pulled up his coat collar and ran down the muddy village street towards his quarters.
He brushed it aside angrily and strode fast up the sidewalk, catching up to a soldier who was slouching along in the same direction, with his hands in his pockets and eyes on the ground. Andrews stopped suddenly as he was about to pass the soldier and turned. The man looked up. It was Chrisfield. Andrews held out his hand. Chrisfield seized it eagerly and shook it for a long time. "Jesus Christ!
"No, I'm your sort, Chris," he said over his shoulder, "only they've tamed me. O God, how tame I am." Chrisfield did not listen to what he was saying. He stood in front of the woman, staring in her face. She looked at him in a stupid frightened way. He felt in his pockets for some money. As he had just been paid he had a fifty-franc note. He spread it out carefully before her. Her eyes glistened.
Corporal Chrisfield stood on the ladder that led up from the yard, his head on a level with the floor shouting: "Shake it up, fellers! If a guy's late to roll call, it's K. P. for a week." As Andrews, while buttoning his tunic, passed him on the ladder, he whispered: "Tell me we're going to see service again, Andy... Army o' Occupation."
The companies marched off separately. Chrisfield overheard the lieutenant saying to a sergeant: "Damn fool business that. Why the hell couldn't they have sent us here in the first place?" "So we ain't goin' to the front after all?" said the sergeant. "Front, hell!" said the lieutenant.
Antoinette brought a bottle of cognac and two small glasses and sat down in an empty chair with her red hands crossed on her apron. Her eyes moved from Chrisfield to the Frenchman and back again. Chrisfield turned a little round in his chair and looked at the Frenchman, feeling in his eyes for a moment a glance of the man's yellowish-brown eyes.
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