"C'est du cognac! Vive le roi cognac!" everybody shouted.

"Au plein de mon cognac

Qu'il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon,

Au plein de mon cognac

Qu'il fait bon dormir."

"Down with the war! Who can sing the 'Internationale'?"

"Not so much noise, I beg you, gentlemen," came the withered woman's whining [39]voice. "It's after hours. Last week I was fined. Next time I'll be closed up."

[39]

The night was black when Martin and Randolph, after lengthy and elaborate farewells, started down the muddy road towards the hospital. They staggered along the slippery footpath beside the road, splashed every instant with mud by camions, huge and dark, that roared grindingly by. They ran and skipped arm-in-arm and shouted at the top of their lungs:

"Auprès de ma blonde,

Qu'il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon,

Auprès de ma blonde,

Qu'il fait bon dormir."

A stench of sweat and filth and formaldehyde caught them by the throat as they went into the hospital tent, gave them a sense of feverish bodies of men stretched all about them, stirring in pain.

"A car for la Bassée, Ambulance 4," said the orderly.

Howe got himself up off the hospital stretcher, shoving his flannel shirt back into his breeches, put on his coat and belt and felt his way to the door, stumbling over the legs of sleeping brancardiers as he went. Men swore in their sleep and turned over heavily. At the door he waited a minute, then shouted:

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