Some one had taken off my shoes and they were drying by the fire,
stuffed with paper to keep them in shape. My soaking outer garments
had been carried to the lean-to kitchen to hang by the stove, and dry
under the care of a soldier servant who helped with the cooking. I
looked at him curiously. His predecessor had been killed in the room
where he stood.
The German batteries were firing, and every now and then from the
trenches at the foot of the street came the sharp ping of rifles. No
one paid any attention. We were warm and sheltered from the wind. What
if the town was being shelled and the Germans were only six hundred
feet away? We were getting dry, and there was mutton for dinner.
It was a very cheerful party--the two young ladies, and a third who
had joined them temporarily, a doctor who was taking influenza and
added little to the conversation, the chauffeur attached to the house,
who was a count in ordinary times, a Belgian major who had come up
from the trenches to have a real meal, and the English officer who had
taken me out.
Outside the door stood the major's Congo servant, a black boy who
never leaves him, following with dog-like fidelity into the trenches
and sleeping outside his door when the major is in billet. He had
picked him up in the Congo years before during his active service
there.
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