The Zouave is pleased to have puzzled the Boche; it is a game he loves to indulge in. He is indeed one of those usually on fatigue duty, in spite of the rule that forbids the wounded to be sent to work. But if this invalid daily braves the fatigue of a painful march, of a long wait on open land exposed to the inclemency of the weather, if he is willing to suffer from the wind and the rain, it is because this wearisome day assures him his daily bread. He answers to the name of one of his comrades chosen to go on fatigue, in order to receive the sum of threepence. With this money he buys a ration of bread from a needy Englishman, who can go without food more easily than without tobacco. To such extremities is this unhappy lad, just out of hospital, reduced. He braves a march of eight kilometres and a wait of ten hours in an icy downpour which brings on him a fever, to have 300 grammes--scarcely a slice of K. bread, which is black, indigestible and made of bran, starch of potatoes and sawdust. * * * * * Amongst the workers who labour without ceasing, a skilled eye quickly detects those who in civil life are not used to this kind of work. They are awkward, their tools seem too heavy for them. Here, for example, is a young man, a budding soldier, who pants and perspires while pushing before him a heavily-loaded barrow, the wheel of which grates at each turn. The vehicle never will go straight, in spite of the despairing efforts of its wheeler, who, however, works with as much care as if the salvation of his country and his own deliverance depended on the safe arrival of the load. He is a little man, puny, with a humble, frightened air and a reserved manner, but his eyes have the sharpness and the malice of a monkey. He goes on, absorbed in his work, without deigning to notice those who surround him, whether allies or enemies. You would swear that all his faculties are concentrated on the work that he is doing. It is strange; for, after all, what interest can a prisoner have in working for the Huns with so much energy and conscientiousness? One feels that he wishes to remain unnoticed, but his want of skill and his ardour call attention to him. Painfully, after numerous prolonged stops, he gains the planks, where at last the wheelbarrow can roll freely; he will wheel it to the side of a hole. There he will empty his load. Then back again slowly, as much embarrassed, it seems, by his empty wheelbarrow as he was when it was full. After several journeys he gains sufficient skill to pass unnoticed amongst the workers. He is a little Parisian of the class 1913. A typewriter in an office before doing his service, he had never in his [Illustration: _Page 106._]