Three Soldiers Part 22

The omelette melted in his mouth.

"d.a.m.n bon," he said to Yvonne with his mouth full.

She looked at him fixedly.

"Bon, bon," he said again.

"You.... Dan, bon," she said and laughed. The cousin was looking from one to the other enviously, her upper lip lifted away from her teeth in a smile.

The old woman munched her bread in a silent preoccupied fashion.

"There's somebody in the store," said Fuselli after a long pause. "Je irey." He put his napkin down and went out wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Eisenstein and a chalky-faced boy were in the shop.

"Hullo! are you keepin' house here?" asked Eisenstein.

"Sure," said Fuselli conceitedly.

"Have you got any chawc.l.i.t?" asked the chalky-faced boy in a thin bloodless voice.

Fuselli looked round the shelves and threw a cake of chocolate down on the counter.

"Anything else?"

"Nothing, thank you, corporal. How much is it?"

Whistling "There's a long, long trail a-winding," Fuselli strode back into the inner room.

"Combien chocolate?" he asked.

When he had received the money, he sat down at his place at table again, smiling importantly. He must write Al about all this, he was thinking, and he was wondering vaguely whether Al had been drafted yet.

After dinner the women sat a long time chatting over their coffee, while Fuselli squirmed uneasily on his chair, looking now and then at his watch. His pa.s.s was till twelve only; it was already getting on to ten.

He tried to catch Yvonne's eye, but she was moving about the kitchen putting things in order for the night, and hardly seemed to notice him.

At last the old woman shuffled into the shop and there was the sound of a key clicking hard in the outside door. When she came back, Fuselli said good-night to everyone and left by the back door into the court.

There he leaned sulkily against the wall and waited in the dark, listening to the sounds that came from the house. He could see shadows pa.s.sing across the orange square of light the window threw on the cobbles of the court. A light went on in an upper window, sending a faint glow over the disorderly tiles of the roof of the shed opposite.

The door opened and Yvonne and her cousin stood on the broad stone doorstep chattering. Fuselli had pushed himself in behind a big hogshead that had a pleasant tang of old wood damp with sour wine. At last the heads of the shadows on the cobbles came together for a moment and the cousin clattered across the court and out into the empty streets. Her rapid footsteps died away. Yvonne's shadow was still in the door:

"Dan," she said softly.

Fuselli came out from behind the hogshead, his whole body flushing with delight. Yvonne pointed to his shoes. He took them off, and left them beside the door. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven.

"Viens," she said.

He followed her, his knees trembling a little from excitement, up the steep stairs.

The deep broken strokes of the town clock had just begun to strike midnight when Fuselli hurried in the camp gate. He gave up his pa.s.s jauntily to the guard and strolled towards his barracks. The long shed was pitch black, full of a sound of deep breathing and of occasional snoring. There was a thick smell of uniform wool on which the sweat had dried. Fuselli undressed without haste, stretching his arms luxuriously.

He wriggled into his blankets feeling cool and tired, and went to sleep with a smile of self-satisfaction on his lips.

The companies were lined up for retreat, standing stiff as toy soldiers outside their barracks. The evening was almost warm. A little playful wind, oozing with springtime, played with the swollen buds on the plane trees. The sky was a drowsy violet color, and the blood pumped hot and stinging through the stiffened arms and legs of the soldiers who stood at attention. The voices of the non-coms were particularly harsh and metallic this evening. It was rumoured that a general was about. Orders were shouted with fury.

Standing behind the line of his company, Fuselli's chest was stuck out until the b.u.t.tons of his tunic were in danger of snapping off. His shoes were well-shined, and he wore a new pair of puttees, wound so tightly that his legs ached.

At last the bugle sounded across the silent camp.

"Parade rest!" shouted the lieutenant.

Fuselli's mind was full of the army regulations which he had been studying a.s.siduously for the last week. He was thinking of an imaginary examination for the corporalship, which he would pa.s.s, of course.

When the company was dismissed, he went up familiarly to the top sergeant:

"Say, Sarge, doin' anything this evenin'?"

"What the h.e.l.l can a man do when he's broke?" said the top sergeant.

"Well, you come down town with me. I want to introjuce you to somebody."

"Great!"

"Say, Sarge, have they sent that appointment in yet?"

"No, they haven't, Fuselli," said the top sergeant. "It's all made out,"

he added encouragingly.

They walked towards the town silently. The evening was silvery-violet.

The few windows in the old grey-green houses that were lighted shone orange.

"Well, I'm goin' to get it, ain't I?"

A staff car shot by, splashing them with mud, leaving them a glimpse of officers leaning back in the deep cushions.

"You sure are," said the top sergeant in his good-natured voice.

They had reached the square. They saluted stiffly as two officers brushed past them.

"What's the regulations about a feller marryin' a French girl?" broke out Fuselli suddenly.

"Thinking of getting hitched up, are you?"

"h.e.l.l, no." Fuselli was crimson. "I just sort o' wanted to know."

"Permission of C. O., that's all I know of."

They had stopped in front of the grocery shop. Fuselli peered in through the window. The shop was full of soldiers lounging against the counter and the walls. In the midst of them, demurely knitting, sat Yvonne.