Ah! Our "modest dinner!" And we all "vaccinated the tomato" as Habert called it. Soon there was no thought of bombardment and all the preoccupations--What a feast!
They spoke of it a long time, it appears, in the humid cellars of the Citadel....
It is night! I have just walked through Verdun, which is always being bombarded. As I was passing in front of a house, I heard a noise inside, the door was half-open--I entered the hallway----
In the bedroom at the side there was a series of loud noises as if someone was trying to move furniture----
I open the door. I flash my electric torch and perceive a soldier lugging a large wooden chest like a common house thief.
He has not seen me, but turns brusquely at the flash of the light. He is kneeling on the floor and regards me fixedly.
"What are you doing there? Surely it is your sister's house or you wouldn't be kneeling that way! Perhaps I interrupt you?"
He shot me a wicked glance and looked furious at having been caught in flagrant wrong.
"That's not right, what you're doing there, no, it's not right."
"I do nothing wrong, I came here to sleep for a few hours on a bed!"
"In the meanwhile you make enough clatter to wake the neighbors, if there are any, and visit the storeroom----"
"I'm doing nothing wrong, I assure you----"
"We will talk it over! I am wondering why I didn't blow out your brains when I found you pillaging the home of poor people--Here you soil the glory and honor of your comrades. Go! you disgust me!"
"Me also, I have been through hell like the others, and perhaps to-morrow I shall be killed--yes, I will be killed, I swear it. I'm honest--I no longer know what I'm doing. It's true it's not right. What must I do? I've seen all sides of it--I know no more. Arrest me--here I am!"
"Go join your comrades! Go quick. You have time to make reparation--you know what. This secret will rest between you and me. Now go!"
The man took himself away without daring to look back and I watched him disappear into the night----
PRECIPITOUS DEPARTURE, VERDUN. _March_, 1916.
To-day I returned to Verdun, and LeBlond and I have taken a rest in the comfortable home of M. and Mme. Louis.
These worthy persons quit the city with the former's sister, Mme. Joannie, and Habert, our orderly, watches the premises.