But we _do_ get bored, because present-day warfare is colourless and dull, like our uniforms. Those at home, however, suppose us to be in the thick of it all the time, standing with bayonet fixed and head flung back, ferocious and hirsute, blood-stained and sublime. Is it in this light that history will depict us? I hope not, both for its own sake and for our own. Now I must be off to clean some potatoes. The battalion is returning to the trenches shortly. CHAPTER VIII TWENTY-TWO DAYS IN THE TRENCHES _Sunday, 25th October._ Roberty, our lieutenant, has been evacuated. We saw him leave in the ambulance. We are very sorry, as he is the first friend to drop out of our life so far. Two months' intimacy, pleasure and pain shared hourly by us all, have enabled us to appreciate at his true worth this officer with whom Reymond and myself have been on the most intimate terms, and who valued his rank only in so far as it enabled him to make the life of his men more tolerable. I am not speaking merely of ourselves, his close friends; every soldier of the section did more than obey him. They dreaded his displeasure, and looked quite discomfited if by any chance they had made him angry. Roberty slept on straw with the first squadron, partaking of the same food as the rest. He cheerfully performed every duty that fell to an officer's lot. Every evening, in the trenches, he went himself to arrange about the outposts. His task finished, he would come back to us in our shelter and engage in a friendly chat and smoke. "Even in the Foreign Legion," remarked Belin, "I never saw that done." Raising his index finger, he added-- "But though he made himself one of us, I never respected any officer more than I respected him." No, we were not very gay last night as we gathered sorrowfully round our lieutenant's bed. "So it's decided that you are to go?" I said to him. "Well, there'll be precious little fun in fighting with you away!" He was suffering much, and made no answer. When, however, the stretcher-bearers came for him, he spoke to us somewhat after the fashion in which Mazarin, on his death-bed, recommended Colbert to the youthful Louis XIV-- "My children, though I have done much for you, I crown all my kindness by leaving you Jules. You have seen him at work; he has every possible vice. Make use of his virtues as well." Once more we admired the goodness and generosity of our kind chief, whom, alas! we were to lose. Our last words were-- "Thanks for everything. You have been a real brother to us, and we will never forget you." Then the ambulance carried him off. Immediately afterwards we found Jules in a corner, looking the picture of despair. The lieutenant's departure was for him the end of a dream. "Come here, Jules. The lieutenant has advised us to take you along. Will you come?"