Then
Captain F---- produced his box of biscuits, and from a capacious
pocket of his army overcoat a tin of bully beef. The House of the Mill
of Saint ---- contributed a bottle of thin white native wine and,
triumphantly, a glass. There are not many glasses along the front.
There was cheese too. And at the end of the meal Colonel Jacques, with
great _empressement_, laid before me a cake of sweet chocolate.
I had to be shown the way to use the bully beef. One of the hard flat
biscuits was split open, spread with butter and then with the beef in
a deep layer. It was quite good, but what with excitement and fatigue
I was not hungry. Everybody ate; everybody talked; and, after asking
my permission, everybody smoked. I sat near the stove and dried my
steaming boots.
Afterward I remembered that with all the conversation there was very
little noise. Our voices were subdued. Probably we might have cheered
in that closed and barricaded house without danger. But the sense of
the nearness of the enemy was over us all, and the business of war was
not forgotten. There were men who came, took orders and went away.
There were maps on the walls and weapons in every corner. Even the
sacking that covered the windows bespoke caution and danger.
Here it was too near the front for the usual peasant family huddled
round its stove in the kitchen, and looking with resignation on these
strange occupants of their house.
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