"It's not worth while to make-believe about it," says one of them banteringly. "I'm staying here this time. It's finished--my bowels are shot through. If I were in a hospital, in a town, they'd operate on me in time, and it might stick up again. But here! It was yesterday I got it. We're two or three hours from the Bethune road, aren't we? And how many hours, think you, from the road to an ambulance where they can operate? And then, when are they going to pick us up? It's nobody's fault, I dare say; but you've got to look facts in the face. Oh, I know it isn't going to be any worse from now than it is, but it can't be long, seeing I've a hole all the way through my parcel of guts. You, your foot'll get all right, or they'll put you another one on. But I'm going to die." "Ah!" said the other, convinced by the reasoning of his neighbor. The latter goes on--"Listen, Dominique. You've led a bad life. You cribbed things, and you were quarrelsome when drunk. You've dirtied your ticket in the police register, properly." "I can't say it isn't true, because it is," says the other; "but what have you got to do with it?" "You'll lead a bad life again after the war, inevitably; and then you'll have bother about that affair of the cooper." The other becomes fierce and aggressive. "What the hell's it to do with you? Shut your jaw!" "As for me, I've no more family than you have. I've nobody, except Louise--and she isn't a relation of mine, seeing we're not married. And there are no convictions against me, beyond a few little military jobs. There's nothing on my name." "Well, what about it? I don't care a damn." "I'm going to tell you. Take my name. Take it--I give it you; as long as neither of us has any family." "Your name?" "Yes; you'll call yourself Leonard Carlotti, that's all. 'Tisn't a big job. What harm can it do you? Straight off, you've no more convictions. They won't hunt you out, and you can be as happy as I should have been if this bullet hadn't gone through my magazine." "Oh Christ!" said the other, "you'd do that? You'd--that--well, old chap, that beats all!" "Take it. It's there in my pocket-book in my greatcoat. Go on, take it, and hand yours over to me--so that I can carry it all away with me. You'll be able to live where you like, except where I come from, where I'm known a bit, at Longueville in Tunis. You'll remember that? And anyway, it's written down. You must read it, the pocket-book. I shan't blab to anybody. To bring the trick off properly, mum's the word, absolutely." He ponders a moment, and then says with a shiver "I'll p'raps tell Louise, so's she'll find I've done the right thing, and think the better of me, when I write to her to say good-by." But he thinks better of it, and shakes his head with an heroic effort. "No--I shan't let on, even to her. She's her, of course, but women are such chatterers!" The other man looks at him, and repeats, "Ah, nome de Dieu!"