"How many will stay there?" He looked as if he were reckoning up the number of victims around us. I said wearily: "Oh, as to that!" He was silent. I asked him if he was married. "Yes, Sergeant." "Any children?" "One of fifteen months, and another ... on the way!" Looking down at the ground, he sighed. "How stupid it is to fight!" I thought how in our camp, and no doubt in the opposite camps too, nearly every individual was privately thinking the same thing! And yet each one bowed his head and went on. Poor human race! We started off. The night was cool and clear. A good one to march on. Guillaumin came to keep me company. He announced that he was in "the pink" and joked below his breath with his men and mine, whom he already knew better than I did. He forced me to share his good humour. It may be imagined that I did not rise much, though I avoided looking too anxious. I dreaded a direct question and intended to withdraw into myself alone with my sorrow. He ended by getting tired of it and left me, but then it was the subaltern's turn to hang on to me. It was difficult to escape him. It was in vain that I purposely arranged to walk so that he was forced to the side of the road, where he kept stumbling over endless obstacles such as ruts and heaps of flints. He did not lose heart, and I had to put up with a new explanation of the situation. Then he tried to make out where we were. Every other minute I saw him consulting his map with the aid of his electric torch. "Look, we're following this road." He must have made a mistake, at some cross roads. Contrary to his expectation we did not cross the high road to Étain. Then he tried to take his bearings by the heavens, the Great Wain, and the Polar Star. I no longer even pretended to take an interest. I thirsted for solitude. I took advantage of a moment when he left me to go to the captain, to sign to Bouillon. With this place filled, I was saved. I went on automatically like a beast of burden. The weariness, and perspiration, the crushing weight of the pack, the bumping of the haversack and the water-bottle, the pressure of the crossed straps, all that combined, almost took away the consciousness of existence. A vague regret survived, however. I mechanically repeated to myself from time to time: "My brother has been killed, my brother has been killed...." But these words conveyed hardly anything to my mind, my grief seemed to be numbed. I confusedly flattered myself that just now, at the first respite, it would awake, awful and sweet, and envelop me in its generous flood.