"That the sugar? A fat lot, isn't it? Why, you gave the third twice as much as this! It's a bit too thick!"
"There were five extra in the third," replies the corporal. "If you are not satisfied, you had better go and complain to the Ministry. That's all about it!"
During this time, Martin, a miner from the north, busies himself hacking to pieces on the table a huge quarter of beef. To assist him in this undertaking, he has no more than a pocket-knife, a pocket-knife with a safety-catch and a solid blade, which he has possessed since Vauxmarie. He tells us it was given to him by a Boche prisoner overjoyed at finding himself a prisoner, that it is a famous piece of goods, and that there is not another knife in all the company for chopping up a bit of beef to equal that Boche knife handled by him, Martin.
But Martin is a virtuoso where carving is concerned. He perches himself on top of the enormous mass of flesh, slices away at it with long straight strokes, hacks away savagely at resisting tendons, hunching his shoulders, clenching his teeth, flattening still more his polecat-like nose, handling the knife in a very frenzy, grunting, slashing and swearing. And when finally the task is achieved, a profoundly deep sigh of relief escapes Martin. He turns, screws up his eyes, widens his mouth with a smile distorted by the quid he is chewing, squirts a jet of brown saliva from the corner of his mouth on to the ground, and says in a self-satisfied tone, in the tone of a conqueror who, the fight finished, wishes to forget any asperity which may have marred it:
In the fireplace, vine branches hiss and splutter; the flame leaps high, lighting up the chimney plaque, the lines and reliefs of which are deeply buried beneath an accumulation of soot. The fatigue party is gone; there remain with us only the messengers and orderlies. Pannechon investigates a dish, and approaches with some pieces of smoking meat on the point of his knife. Presle wipes the table with a cloth. The others, sitting on the floor, backs to the wall and knees drawn up to chins, smoke their pipes and expectorate.
Rice soup, broiled meat with cooked rice, boiling coffee: the dinner alone is worth the march to Mouilly! And there is a bed for us! A mattress and an eiderdown! We get into it quickly. On the floor beside us our empty boots yawn wide. The dispatch-rider, ensconced in a heap of straw brought in armfuls from the barn, is sleeping heavily and fairly rocking us with his measured snoring. In our turn, we too fall asleep, well replenished, the body at ease, feet unhampered, in a dense atmosphere compounded of the fumes of burnt fat, tobacco and human beings.