"You'd better get my kit and everything ready for me to leave," he said, drinking the last of the coffee and setting his hand again to the rake.
They had reckoned that he would need to leave the house at ten o'clock if he were to make the long tramp to Noyon in time for the train. At a quarter of ten he stopped, and, the rake still tightly held in his hand, crossed the road. His knapsack, blanket-roll, all the various brown bags and _musettes_ were waiting for him on the bench hewn from a tree-trunk before the door. He passed them, went around the little hut, and stepped into the garden.
Between the heaped-up lines of rubble, the big rectangle of well-tilled earth lay clean and brown and level. And on it, up and down, were four, long, straight lines of pale green. The peas were up. He was to see that before he went back.
He stooped over them. Some of them were still bowed double with the effort of thrusting themselves up against the encumbering earth. He felt their effort in the muscles of his own back. But others, only a few hours older, were already straightening themselves blithely to reach up to the sun and warmth. This also he felt--in his heart. Under the intent gaze of the gardener, the vigorous little plants seemed to be vibrating with life. His eyes were filled with it. He turned away and went back to the open door of the hut. His wife, very pale, stood there, silent. He heaved up his knapsack, adjusted his blanket-roll and _musettes_, and drew a long breath.
"Good-bye, Paulette," he said, kissing her on both cheeks, the dreadful long kiss which may be the last.
"I will--I will take care of things here," she said, her voice dying away in her throat.
He kissed his children, he stooped low to kiss the little foster-child. He looked once more across at the field, not yet seeded. Then he started back to the trenches.
He had gone but a few steps when he stopped short and came back hurriedly. The rake was still in his hand. He had forgotten his gun.
I was tucking the children into bed after their bath, my rosy, romping, noisy children, when "le soldat Deschamps" was announced. Deschamps is the man from the north of France, who had been a coal-miner before the war, the man whose wife and little boy are still "up there," the man who has not seen his family since he kissed them the fourth of August three years ago.