"We both enlisted in the Chasseurs Alpins. They made Bertrand a lieutenant, then a captain--he was a man to lead. And how kind, how good to his men! That was before he had won his nom de guerre--before they called him Monsieur Satan. If there was a danger he would see it first and race for it, to get ahead of his men. He would give them no orders that he would not fill with them; and always so pitying for the prisoners. 'Treat them kindly, mes garçons,' he would cry; and what mercy he would show! Mon Dieu! I have seen him, when his mouth was cracking with the thirst, pour the last drop from his canteen down the throat of a dying Boche, or share the last bread in his baluchon with a wounded prisoner. And the many times he has crept into No Man's Land to bring in a blessé we could hear moaning in the dark; and when it turned out a Boche, as so often it did, he would carry him with the same tenderness. That was Bertrand Fauchet when war began. Once I ask him, 'Why are you so careful with the Boches?' and he smiled that little-boy smile of his and say: 'Why not? We are still gentlemen if we are at war. And listen, François--some day our little Tourteron may fall into Boche hands. I would have them know many kindnesses from us before that happens.' "Eh bien, Tourteron did fall into their hands, ma'am'selle, and there it has been until a fortnight ago. The German ranks swept it like a sea and made it their own, as they made the houses, the cattle, the orchards, the maids, quite their own. You comprehend? After that Bertrand fight like the devil and pray like the saint. Then one day a Boche stabs Paul--Nanette's brother Paul--as he stoops to succor him. Fauchet sees; and he hears the tales that come across the trenches to us. The abbé is crucified to the chapel door because he gives sanctuary to the young girls; Père Fauchet is shot in the Square with other anciens for example. After that Capitaine Fauchet gives us the order 'no mercy,' and we kill in battle and out. Ma'am'selle shudders--mais, que voulez-vous? He is Monsieur Satan now; but I still think he prays. "And now comes the big drive of the Supreme Command. Village after village that has been Boche land for four years becomes French again. The people go mad with joy; they come rushing out to meet our regiments like souls turned out of hell by God Himself. But such souls, ma'am'selle! Be thankful in your heart you shall never have the little places of America thrown back to you by a retreating Boche army, never look into the faces of the people who have been made to serve their desires. It is like when the tide goes out on the coast and leaves behind it wreckage and slime. Only here it was human wreckage.