The corporal filled the bowls while they passed them hand to hand. But still there was no voracity. A leashed quality, but even, almost unimpatient as they sat holding each his upended unsoiled spoon like a boat-crew or a parade.
‘This looks bad,’ one said.
‘It’s worse,’ another said. ‘It’s serious.’
‘It’s a reprieve,’ a third said. ‘Somebody besides a garage mechanic cooked this. So if they went to all that trouble — —’ a third began.
‘Hold it,’ the Breton said. The man opposite him was short and very dark, his jaw wrenched by an old healed wound. He was saying something rapidly in an almost unintelligible Mediterranean dialect — Midi or perhaps Basque. They looked at one another. Suddenly still another spoke. He looked like a scholar, almost like a professor.
‘He wants someone to say grace,’ he said.
The corporal looked at the Midian. ‘Say it then.’ Again the other said something rapid and incomprehensible. Again the one who resembled a scholar translated.
‘He says he doesn’t know one.’
‘Does anybody know one?’ the corporal said. Again they looked at one another. Then one said to the fourth one:
‘You’ve been to school. Say one.’
‘Maybe he went too fast and passed it,’ another said.
‘Say it then,’ the corporal said to the fourth one. The other said rapidly:
‘Benedictus. Benedicte. Benedictissimus. Will that do?’
‘Will that do, Luluque?’ the corporal said to the Midian.
‘Yes yes,’ the Midian said. They began to eat now. The Breton lifted one of the bottles slightly toward the corporal.
‘Okay?’ he said.
‘Okay,’ the corporal said. Six other hands took up the other bottles; they ate and poured and passed the bottles too.
‘A reprieve,’ the third said. ‘They wouldn’t dare execute us until we have finished eating this cooking. Our whole nation would rise at that insult to what we consider the first of the arts. How’s this for an idea? We stagger this, eat one at a time, one man to each hour, thirteen hours; we’ll still be alive at … almost noon tomorrow — —’
‘ — when they’ll serve us another meal,’ another said, ‘and we’ll stagger that one into dinner and then stagger dinner on through tomorrow night — —’
‘ — and in the end eat ourselves into old age when we cant eat anymore — —’
‘Let them shoot us then. Who cares?’ the third said. ‘No. That bastard sergeant will be in here with his firing squad right after the coffee. You watch.’
‘Not that quick,’ the first said. ‘You have forgot what we consider the first of the virtues too. Thrift. They will wait until we have digested this and defecated it.’
‘What will they want with that?’ the fourth said.
‘Fertiliser,’ the first said. ‘Imagine that corner, that garden-plot manured with the concentrate of this meal — —’
‘The manure of traitors,’ the fourth said. He had the dreamy and furious face of a martyr.
‘In that case, wouldn’t the maize, the bean, the potato grow upside down, or anyway hide its head even if it couldn’t bury it?’ the second said.
‘Stop it,’ the corporal said.
‘Or more than just the corner of a plot,’ the third said. ‘The carrion we’ll bequeath France tomorrow — —’
‘Stop it!’ the corporal said.
‘Christ assoil us,’ the fourth said.
‘Aiyiyi,’ the third said. ‘We can call on him then. He need not fear cadavers.’
‘Do you want me to make them shut up, Corp?’ the Breton said.
‘Come on now,’ the corporal said. ‘Eat. You’ll spend the rest of the night wishing you did have something to clap your jaws on. Save the philosophy for then.’
‘The wit too,’ the third said.
‘Then we will starve,’ the first said.
‘Or indigest,’ the third said. ‘If much of what we’ve heard tonight is wit.’
‘Come on now,’ the corporal said. ‘I’ve told you twice. Do you want your bellies to say you’ve had enough, or that sergeant to come back in and say you’ve finished?’ So they ate again, except the man on the corporal’s left, who once more stopped his laden knife blade halfway to his mouth.
‘Polchek’s not eating,’ he said suddenly. ‘He’s not even drinking. What’s the matter, Polchek? Afraid yours wont produce anything but nettles and you wont make it to the latrine in time and we’ll have to sleep in them?’ The man addressed was on the corporal’s immediate right. He had a knowing, almost handsome metropolitan or possibly banlieu face, bold but not at all arrogant, masked, composed, and only when you caught his eyes unawares did you realise how alert.
‘A day of rest at Chaulnesmont wasn’t the right pill for that belly of his maybe,’ the first said.
‘The sergeant-major’s coup de grâce tomorrow morning will be though,’ the fourth said.
‘Maybe it’ll cure all of you of having to run a fever over what I dont eat and drink,’ Polchek said.
‘What’s the matter?’ the corporal said to him. ‘You went on sick parade Sunday night before we came out. Haven’t you got over it yet?’
‘So what?’ Polchek said. ‘Is it an issue? I had a bad belly Sunday night. I’ve still got it but it’s still mine. I was just sitting here with it, not worrying half as much about what I dont put in it, as some innocent bystanders do because I dont.’
‘Do you want to make an issue of it?’ the fourth said.
‘Bang on the door,’ the corporal said to the Breton. ‘Tell the sergeant we want to report a sick man.’
‘Who’s making an issue of it now?’ Polchek said to the corporal before the Breton could move. He picked up his filled glass. ‘Come on,’ he said to the corporal. ‘No heel taps. If my belly dont like wine tonight, as Jean says that sergeant-major’s pistol will pump it all out tomorrow morning.’ He said to all of them: ‘Come on. To peace. Haven’t we finally got what we’ve all been working for for four years now? Come on, up with them!’ he said, louder and sharply, with something momentary and almost fierce in his voice, face, look.
At once the same excitement, restrained fierceness, seemed to pass through all of them; they raised their glasses too except one — the fourth one of the mountain faces, not quite as tall as the others and with something momentary and anguished in it almost like despair, who suddenly half raised his glass and stopped it and did not drink when the others did and banged the bizarre and incongruous vessels down and reached for the bottles again as, preceded by the sound of the heavy boots, the door clashed open again and the sergeant and his private entered; he now held an unfolded paper in his hand.
‘Polchek,’ he said. For a second Polchek didn’t stir. Then the man who had not drunk gave a convulsive start and although he arrested it at once, when Polchek stood quietly up they both for a moment were in motion, so that the sergeant, about to address Polchek again, paused and looked from one to the other. ‘Well?’ the sergeant said. ‘Which? Dont you even know who you are?’ Nobody answered. As one the others except Polchek were looking at the man who had not drunk. ‘You,’ the sergeant said to the corporal. ‘Dont you know your own men?’
‘This is Polchek,’ the corporal said, indicating Polchek.
‘Then what’s wrong with him?’ the sergeant said. He said to the other man: ‘What’s your name?’
‘I — —’ the man said; again he glanced rapidly about, at nothing, no one, anguished and despairing.
‘His name is — —’ the corporal said. ‘I’ve got his papers — —’ He reached inside his tunic and produced a soiled dog-eared paper, obviously a regimental posting order. ‘Pierre Bouc.’ He rattled off a number.
‘There’s no Bouc on this list,’ the sergeant said. ‘What’s he doing here?’
‘You tell me,’ the corporal said. ‘He got mixed in with us somehow Monday morning. None of us know any Pierre Bouc either.’
‘Why didn’t he say something before this?’
‘Who would have listened?’ the corporal said.
‘Is that right?’ the sergeant said to the man. ‘You dont belong in this squad?’ The man didn’t answer.
‘Tell him,’ the corporal said.
‘No,’ the man whispered. Then he said loudly: ‘No!’ He blundered up. ‘I dont know them!’ he said, blundering, stumbling, half-falling backward over the bench almost as though in flight until the sergeant checked him.
‘The major will have to settle this,’ the sergeant said. ‘Give me that order.’ The corporal passed it to him. ‘Out with you,’ the sergeant said. ‘Both of you.’ Now those inside the room could see beyond the door another file of armed men, apparently a new one, waiting. The two prisoners passed on through the door and into it, the sergeant then the orderly following; the iron door clashed behind them, against that room and all it contained, signified, portended; beyond it Polchek didn’t even lower his voice:
‘They promised me brandy. Where is it?’
‘Shut up,’ the sergeant’s voice said. ‘You’ll get what’s coming to you, no bloody fear.’
‘I’d better,’ Polchek said. ‘If I dont, I might know what to do about it.’
‘I’ve told him once,’ the sergeant’s voice said. ‘If he dont shut up
