Marching, the use of rifle and bayonet, and gymnastic classes, do not by any means exhaust the schedule of conscript training. There is all the business of barrack room life, the cleaning of equipment in which the corporal is ever at hand to instruct, and men in their second year are also at hand to advise and give hints; there are fatigues, white-washing, trench-digging, and all sorts of things of which in pre-military days, probably, the conscript never dreamed. There are route marches with the battalion, the commanding officer and band at the head. There is always something to do, always something waiting to be done, and in looking forward there is an endless succession of very busy days to contemplate. One goes to bed tired--very healthily tired--and one wakens to work. The work is not always pleasant, but it has the charm--if such it can be called--of never-ending variety. A monotonous variety it may be, but then, one has little time to think, and then there is always the canteen, and Jean, who sleeps in the corner opposite Pierre, has just received his allowance from home. There is yet ten minutes before parade--we will go with Jean to the canteen.... CHAPTER V OFF DUTY There is a strict but unwritten law of the French Army as regards the canteen: no man may take a drink by himself. _Faire suisse_ is the term applied, if one goes to the canteen alone, and the rest of the men in the conscript's room look on him as something of a mean fellow if he does such a thing as this. Of course, it works out at the same thing in the end, and share and share alike is not a bad principle, while it is eminently good Republicanism. Jean must share his remittance from home with somebody; he can pick the men whom he desires to treat, but he must not lay himself open to the accusation of _faire suisse_, no matter what arm of the service he represents. It is bad comradeship, for his fellows, when they have a slice of luck, would not think of doing it. Why should he? Thus, and with justice, they reason, and out of such reasoning comes the sharing of the last drops of water with a comrade on the field, the acts of self-denial and courageous self-sacrifice for which men of the French Army have always been famed. It is a little thing in itself, this compulsory sharing of one's luck, but it leads to great things, at times.