I had not. At that point food had interfered, and I asked if it was too
much that the colonel should repeat.

"By no means," agreed the polite colonel, ready, moreover, I guessed,
for any amount of talk in his native tongue. He launched an epic
episode. "I was hit leading, in a charge, two battalions. I need not
have done that," another shrug--"but what will you? It was snowing; it
was going to be bad work; one could perhaps put courage into the men by
being at their head. It is often the duty of an officer to do more than,
his duty--_n'est-ce-pas?_ So that I was hit in the right knee and the
left shoulder _par exemple_, and fell about six yards from the German
trenches. A place unhealthy, and one sees I could not run away, being
shot on the bias. I shammed dead. An alive French officer would have
been too interesting in that scenery. I assure m'sieur that the
_entr'actes_ are far too long in No Man's Land. I became more and more
displeased with the management of that play as I lay, very badly amused
with my wounds, and afraid to blink an eye, being a corpse. The Huns
demand a high state of immobility in corpses. But I fell happily
sidewise, and out of the extreme corner of the left eye I caught a
glimpse of our sand-bags. One blessed that twist, though it became
enough _ennuyant_, and one would have given a year of good life to turn
over. Merely to turn over. Am I fatiguing m'sieur?" the colonel broke
in.

I prodded him back eagerly into his tale.

"M'sieur is amiable. The long and short of it is that when it became
dark my good lads began to try to rescue my body. Four or five times
that one-twentieth of eye saw a wriggling form work through sand-bags
and start slowly, flat to the earth, toward me. But the ground was