“Apportez-moi une bouteille de champagne, vite!...” said the young officer. Then he waved his arm and said: “J'ai perdu mon cheval” (“A kingdom for a bloody horse!”), “as Shakespeare said. Y a-t'il quelqu'un qui a vu mon sacre cheval? In other words, if I don't find that four-legged beast which led to my damnation I shall be shot at dawn. Fusille, comprenez? On va me fusiller par un mur blanc--or is it une mure blanche? quand l'aurore se leve avec les couleurs d'une rose et l'odeur d'une jeune fille lavee et parfumee. Pretty good that, eh, what? But the fact remains that unless I find my steed, my charger, my war-horse, which in reality does not belong to me at all, because I pinched it from the colonel, I shall be shot as sure as fate, and, alas! I do not want to die. I am too young to die, and meanwhile I desire encore une bouteille de champagne!” The little crowd of citizens found a grim humor in this speech, one-third of which they understood. They laughed coarsely, and a man said: “Quel drole de type! Quel numero!” But the woman who had touched me on the sleeve spoke to me again. “He says he has lost his horse and will be shot as a deserter. Those things happen. My boy in the Argonne tells me that a comrade of his was shot for hiding five days with his young woman. It would be sad if this poor child should be condemned to death.” I pushed my way through the crowd and went up to the officer. “Can I help at all?” He greeted me warmly, as though he had known me for years.