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“Well, well!” said Loubet, “their fireworks are a fizzle!”

“They ought to take them in out of the rain,” sneered Chouteau.

Even Rochas thought it necessary to say something. “Didn’t I tell you that the dunderheads don’t know enough even to point a gun?”

But they were less inclined to laugh when a shell burst only ten yards from them and sent a shower of earth flying over the company; Loubet affected to make light of it by ordering his comrades to get out their brushes from the knapsacks, but Chouteau suddenly became very pale and had not a word to say. He had never been under fire, nor had Pache and Lapoulle, nor any member of the squad, in fact, except Jean. Over eyes that had suddenly lost their brightness lids flickered tremulously; voices had an unnatural, muffled sound, as if arrested by some obstruction in the throat. Maurice, who was sufficiently master of himself as yet, endeavored to diagnose his symptoms; he could not be afraid, for he was not conscious that he was in danger; he only felt a slight sensation of discomfort in the epigastric region, and his head seemed strangely light and empty; ideas and images came and went independent of his will. His recollection of the brave show made by the troops of the 2d division made him hopeful, almost to buoyancy; victory appeared certain to him if only they might be allowed to go at the enemy with the bayonet.

“Listen!” he murmured, “how the flies buzz; the place is full of them.” Thrice he had heard something that sounded like the humming of a swarm of bees.

“That was not a fly,” Jean said, with a laugh. “It was a bullet.”

Again and again the hum of those invisible wings made itself heard. The men craned their necks and looked about them with eager interest; their curiosity was uncontrollable–would not allow them to remain quiet.

“See here,” Loubet said mysteriously to Lapoulle, with a view to raise a laugh at the expense of his simple-minded comrade, “when you see a bullet coming toward you you must raise your forefinger before your nose–like that; it divides the air, and the bullet will go by to the right or left.”

“But I can’t see them,” said Lapoulle.

A loud guffaw burst from those near.

“Oh, crickey! he says he can’t see them! Open your garret windows, stupid! See! there’s one–see! there’s another. Didn’t you see that one? It was of the most beautiful green.”

And Lapoulle rolled his eyes and stared, placing his finger before his nose, while Pache fingered the scapular he wore and wished it was large enough to shield his entire person.

Rochas, who had remained on his feet, spoke up and said jocosely:

“Children, there is no objection to your ducking to the shells when you see them coming. As for the bullets, it is useless; they are too numerous!”

At that very instant a soldier in the front rank was struck on the head by a fragment of an exploding shell. There was no outcry; simply a spurt of blood and brain, and all was over.

“Poor devil!” tranquilly said Sergeant Sapin, who was quite cool and exceedingly pale. “Next!”

But the uproar had by this time become so deafening that the men could no longer hear one another’s voice; Maurice’s nerves, in particular, suffered from the infernal charivari. The neighboring battery was banging away as fast as the gunners could load the pieces; the continuous roar seemed to shake the ground, and the mitrailleuses were even more intolerable with their rasping, grating, grunting noise. Were they to remain forever reclining there among the cabbages? There was nothing to be seen, nothing to be learned; no one had any idea how the battle was going. And was it a battle, after all–a genuine affair? All that Maurice could make out, projecting his eyes along the level surface of the fields, was the rounded, wood-clad summit of Hattoy in the remote distance, and still unoccupied. Neither was there a Prussian to be seen anywhere on the horizon; the only evidence of life were the faint, blue smoke-wreaths that rose and floated an instant in the sunlight. Chancing to turn his head, he was greatly surprised to behold at the bottom of a deep, sheltered valley, surrounded by precipitous heights, a peasant calmly tilling his little field, driving the plow through the furrow with the assistance of a big white horse. Why should he lose a day? The corn would keep growing, let them fight as they would, and folks must live.