‘Going to fatten us up first, huh?’ one of the prisoners said. The sergeant didn’t answer; he was now working at his front teeth with a gold toothpick.

  ‘If the next thing they bring is a tablecloth, the third will be a priest,’ another prisoner said. But he was wrong, although the number of casseroles and pots and dishes (including a small caldron obviously soup) which did come next, followed by a third man carrying a whole basket of bottles and a jumble of utensils and cutlery, was almost as unnerving, the sergeant speaking now though still around, past the toothpick:

  ‘Hold it now. At least let them get their hands and arms out of the way.’ Though the prisoners had really not moved yet to rush upon the table, the food: it was merely a shift, semicircular, poised while the third orderly set the wine (there were seven bottles) on the table and then began to place the cups, vessels, whatever anyone wanted to call them — tin cups, pannikins from mess kits, two or three cracked tumblers, two flagons contrived by bisecting laterally one canteen.

  ‘Dont apologise, garçon,’ the wit said. ‘Just so it’s got a bottom at one end and a hole at the other.’ Then the one who had brought the wine scuttled back to the door after the two others, and out of it; the private with the bayonet dodged his seven-foot-long implement through it again and turned, holding the door half closed for the sergeant.

  ‘All right, you bastards,’ the sergeant said. ‘Be pigs.’

  ‘Speak for yourself, maître,’ the wit said. ‘If we must dine in stink, we prefer it to be our own.’ Then suddenly, in unpremeditated concert as though they had not even planned it or instigated it, they had not even been warned of it but instead had been overtaken from behind by it like wind, they had all turned on the sergeant, or perhaps not even the sergeant, the human guards, but just the rifles and the bayonets and the steel lockable door, not moving, rushing toward them but just yelling at them — a sound hoarse, loud, without language, not of threat or indictment either: just a hoarse concerted affirmation of invincible repudiation which continued for another moment or so even after the sergeant had passed through the door and it had clashed shut again. Then they stopped. Yet they still didn’t rush at the table, still hovering, semicircular, almost diffidently, merely enclosing it, their noses trembling questing like those of rabbits at the odors from it, grimed, filthy, reeking still of the front lines and uncertainty and perhaps despair; unshaven, faces not alarming nor even embittered but harassed — faces of men who had already borne not only more than they expected but than they believed they could and who knew that it was still not over and — with a sort of amazement, even terror — that no matter how much more there would be, they would still bear that too.

  ‘Come on, Corp,’ a voice said. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘O.K.,’ the corporal said. ‘Watch it now.’ But still there was no stampede, rush. It was just a crowding, a concentration, a jostling itself almost inattentive, not of famishment, hunger but rather of the watchful noncommittance of people still — so far at least — keeping pace with, holding their own still within the fringe of a fading fairy-tale, the cursing itself inattentive and impersonal, not eager: just pressed as they crowded in onto both the fixed benches, five on one side and six on the other facing them until the twelfth man dragged up the cell’s one stool to the head of the table for the corporal and then himself took the remaining place at the foot end of the unfilled bench like the Vice to the Chair in a Dickensian tavern’s back room — a squat powerful weathered man with the blue eyes and reddish hair and beard of a Breton fisherman, captain say of his own small tough and dauntless boat — laden doubtless with contraband. The corporal filled the bowls while they passed them hand to hand. But still there was no voracity. A leashed quality, but even, almost unimpatient as they sat holding each his upended unsoiled spoon like a boat-crew or a parade.

  ‘This looks bad,’ one said.

  ‘It’s worse,’ another said. ‘It’s serious.’

  ‘It’s a reprieve,’ a third said. ‘Somebody besides a garage mechanic cooked this. So if they went to all that trouble — —’ a third began.

  ‘Hold it,’ the Breton said. The man opposite him was short and very dark, his jaw wrenched by an old healed wound. He was saying something rapidly in an almost unintelligible Mediterranean dialect — Midi or perhaps Basque. They looked at one another. Suddenly still another spoke. He looked like a scholar, almost like a professor.

  ‘He wants someone to say grace,’ he said.

  The corporal looked at the Midian. ‘Say it then.’ Again the other said something rapid and incomprehensible. Again the one who resembled a scholar translated.

  ‘He says he doesn’t know one.’

  ‘Does anybody know one?’ the corporal said. Again they looked at one another. Then one said to the fourth one:

  ‘You’ve been to school. Say one.’

  ‘Maybe he went too fast and passed it,’ another said.

  ‘Say it then,’ the corporal said to the fourth one. The other said rapidly:

  ‘Benedictus. Benedicte. Benedictissimus. Will that do?’

  ‘Will that do, Luluque?’ the corporal said to the Midian.

  ‘Yes yes,’ the Midian said. They began to eat now. The Breton lifted one of the bottles slightly toward the corporal.

  ‘Okay?’ he said.

  ‘Okay,’ the corporal said. Six other hands took up the other bottles; they ate and poured and passed the bottles too.

  ‘A reprieve,’ the third said. ‘They wouldn’t dare execute us until we have finished eating this cooking. Our whole nation would rise at that insult to what we consider the first of the arts. How’s this for an idea? We stagger this, eat one at a time, one man to each hour, thirteen hours; we’ll still be alive at … almost noon tomorrow — —’

  ‘ — when they’ll serve us another meal,’ another said, ‘and we’ll stagger that one into dinner and then stagger dinner on through tomorrow night — —’

  ‘ — and in the end eat ourselves into old age when we cant eat anymore — —’

  ‘Let them shoot us then. Who cares?’ the third said. ‘No. That bastard sergeant will be in here with his firing squad right after the coffee. You watch.’

  ‘Not that quick,’ the first said. ‘You have forgot what we consider the first of the virtues too. Thrift. They will wait until we have digested this and defecated it.’

  ‘What will they want with that?’ the fourth said.

  ‘Fertiliser,’ the first said. ‘Imagine that corner, that garden-plot manured with the concentrate of this meal — —’

  ‘The manure of traitors,’ the fourth said. He had the dreamy and furious face of a martyr.

  ‘In that case, wouldn’t the maize, the bean, the potato grow upside down, or anyway hide its head even if it couldn’t bury it?’ the second said.

  ‘Stop it,’ the corporal said.

  ‘Or more than just the corner of a plot,’ the third said. ‘The carrion we’ll bequeath France tomorrow — —’

  ‘Stop it!’ the corporal said.

  ‘Christ assoil us,’ the fourth said.

  ‘Aiyiyi,’ the third said. ‘We can call on him then. He need not fear cadavers.’

  ‘Do you want me to make them shut up, Corp?’ the Breton said.

  ‘Come on now,’ the corporal said. ‘Eat. You’ll spend the rest of the night wishing you did have something to clap your jaws on. Save the philosophy for then.’

  ‘The wit too,’ the third said.

  ‘Then we will starve,’ the first said.

  ‘Or indigest,’ the third said. ‘If much of what we’ve heard tonight is wit.’

  ‘Come on now,’ the corporal said. ‘I’ve told you twice. Do you want your bellies to say you’ve had enough, or that sergeant to come back in and say you’ve finished?’ So they ate again, except the man on the corporal’s left, who once more stopped his laden knife blade halfway to his mouth.

  ‘Polchek’s not eating,’ he said suddenly. ‘He’s not even drinking. What’s the matter, Polchek? Afraid yours wont produce anything but nettles and you wont make it to the latrine in time and we’ll have to sleep in them?’ The man addressed was on the corporal’s immediate right. He had a knowing, almost handsome metropolitan or possibly banlieu face, bold but not at all arrogant, masked, composed, and only when you caught his eyes unawares did you realise how alert.

  ‘A day of rest at Chaulnesmont wasn’t the right pill for that belly of his maybe,’ the first said.

  ‘The sergeant-major’s coup de grâce tomorrow morning will be though,’ the fourth said.

  ‘Maybe it’ll cure all of you of having to run a fever over what I dont eat and drink,’ Polchek said.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ the corporal said to him. ‘You went on sick parade Sunday night before we came out. Haven’t you got over it yet?’

  ‘So what?’ Polchek said. ‘Is it an issue? I had a bad belly Sunday night. I’ve still got it but it’s still mine. I was just sitting here with it, not worrying half as much about what I dont put in it, as some innocent bystanders do because I dont.’

  ‘Do you want to make an issue of it?’ the fourth said.

  ‘Bang on the door,’ the corporal said to the Breton. ‘Tell the sergeant we want to report a sick man.’

  ‘Who’s making an issue of it now?’ Polchek said to the corporal before the Breton could move. He picked up his filled glass. ‘Come on,’ he said to the corporal. ‘No heel taps. If my belly dont like wine tonight, as Jean says that sergeant-major’s pistol will pump it all out tomorrow morning.’ He said to all of them: ‘Come on. To peace. Haven’t we finally got what we’ve all been working for for four years now? Come on, up with them!’ he said, louder and sharply, with something momentary and almost fierce in his voice, face, look. At once the same excitement, restrained fierceness, seemed to pass through all of them; they raised their glasses too except one — the fourth one of the mountain faces, not quite as tall as the others and with something momentary and anguished in it almost like despair, who suddenly half raised his glass and stopped it and did not drink when the others did and banged the bizarre and incongruous vessels down and reached for the bottles again as, preceded by the sound of the heavy boots, the door clashed open again and the sergeant and his private entered; he now held an unfolded paper in his hand.

  ‘Polchek,’ he said. For a second Polchek didn’t stir. Then the man who had not drunk gave a convulsive start and although he arrested it at once, when Polchek stood quietly up they both for a moment were in motion, so that the sergeant, about to address Polchek again, paused and looked from one to the other. ‘Well?’ the sergeant said. ‘Which? Dont you even know who you are?’ Nobody answered. As one the others except Polchek were looking at the man who had not drunk. ‘You,’ the sergeant said to the corporal. ‘Dont you know your own men?’

  ‘This is Polchek,’ the corporal said, indicating Polchek.

  ‘Then what’s wrong with him?’ the sergeant said. He said to the other man: ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘I — —’ the man said; again he glanced rapidly about, at nothing, no one, anguished and despairing.

  ‘His name is — —’ the corporal said. ‘I’ve got his papers — —’ He reached inside his tunic and produced a soiled dog-eared paper, obviously a regimental posting order. ‘Pierre Bouc.’ He rattled off a number.

  ‘There’s no Bouc on this list,’ the sergeant said. ‘What’s he doing here?’

  ‘You tell me,’ the corporal said. ‘He got mixed in with us somehow Monday morning. None of us know any Pierre Bouc either.’

  ‘Why didn’t he say something before this?’

  ‘Who would have listened?’ the corporal said.

  ‘Is that right?’ the sergeant said to the man. ‘You dont belong in this squad?’ The man didn’t answer.

  ‘Tell him,’ the corporal said.

  ‘No,’ the man whispered. Then he said loudly: ‘No!’ He blundered up. ‘I dont know them!’ he said, blundering, stumbling, half-falling backward over the bench almost as though in flight until the sergeant checked him.

  ‘The major will have to settle this,’ the sergeant said. ‘Give me that order.’ The corporal passed it to him. ‘Out with you,’ the sergeant said. ‘Both of you.’ Now those inside the room could see beyond the door another file of armed men, apparently a new one, waiting. The two prisoners passed on through the door and into it, the sergeant then the orderly following; the iron door clashed behind them, against that room and all it contained, signified, portended; beyond it Polchek didn’t even lower his voice:

  ‘They promised me brandy. Where is it?’

  ‘Shut up,’ the sergeant’s voice said. ‘You’ll get what’s coming to you, no bloody fear.’

  ‘I’d better,’ Polchek said. ‘If I dont, I might know what to do about it.’

  ‘I’ve told him once,’ the sergeant’s voice said. ‘If he dont shut up this time, shut him up.’

  ‘With pleasure, sergeant,’ another voice said. ‘Can do.’

  ‘Take them on,’ the sergeant’s voice said. Though before the iron clash of the door had ceased the corporal was already speaking, not loud: just prompt, still mild, not peremptory: just firm:

  ‘Eat.’ The same man essayed to speak again but again the corporal forestalled him. ‘Eat,’ he said. ‘Next time he will take it out.’ But they were spared that. The door opened almost immediately, but this time it was only the sergeant, alone, the eleven heads which remained turning as one to look at him where he faced the corporal down the length of the littered table.

  ‘You,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘Me?’ the corporal said.

  ‘Yes,’ the sergeant said. Still the corporal didn’t move. He said again:

  ‘You mean me?’

  ‘Yes,’ the sergeant said. ‘Come on.’ The corporal rose then. He gave one rapid look about at the ten faces now turning from the sergeant to look at him — faces dirty, unshaven, strained, which had slept too little in too long, harassed, but absolute, one in whatever it was — not trust exactly, not dependence: perhaps just one-ness, singleness.

  ‘You’re in charge, Paul,’ he said to the Breton.

  ‘Right,’ the Breton said. ‘Till you get back.’ But this time the corridor was empty; it was the sergeant himself who closed the door behind them and turned the heavy key and pocketed it. There was no one in sight at all where he — the corporal — had expected to find armed men bristling until they in the white glittering room in the Hôtel de Ville sent for them for the last time. Then the sergeant turned from the door and now he — the corporal — realised that they were even hurrying a little: not at all furtive nor even surreptitious: just expedite, walking rapidly back up the corridor which he had already traversed three times — once yesterday morning when the guards had brought them from the lorry to the cell, and twice last night when the guards had taken them to the Hôtel de Ville and brought them back, their — his and the sergeant’s — heavy boots not ringing because (so recent the factory — when it had been a factory — was) these were not stone but brick, but making instead a dull and heavy sound seeming only the louder because there were only four now instead of twenty-six plus the guards. So to him it was as though there was no other way out of it save that one exit, no destination to go to in it except on, so that he had already begun to pass the small arch with its locked iron gate when the sergeant checked and turned him, nor any other life in or near it so that he didn’t even recognise the silhouette of the helmet and the rifle until the man was in the act of unlocking the gate from the outside and swinging it back for them to pass through.

  Nor did he see the car at once, the sergeant not quite touching him, just keeping him at that same pace, rapidity, as though by simple juxtaposition, on through the gate into an alley, a blank wall opposite and at the curb-edge the big dark motionless car which he had not noticed yet because of the silence — not the subterrene and cavernous emptiness in which their boots had echoed a moment back but a cul-de-sac of it, himself and the sergeant and the two sentries — the one who had unlocked the gate for them and then locked it after them, and his opposite flanking the other side of the gate — not even at parade rest but at ease, their rifles grounded, immobile and remote, as though oblivious to that to which they in their turn were invisible, the four of them set down in a vacuum of silence within the city’s distant and indefatigable murmur. Then he saw the car. He didn’t stop, it was barely a falter, the sergeant’s shoulder barely nudged him before he went on. The driver didn’t even move to descend; it was the sergeant who opened the door, the shoulder, a hand too now, firm and urgent against his back because he had stopped now, erect, immobile and immovable even after the voice inside the car said, ‘Get in, my child;’ then immovable for another second yet before he stooped and entered it, seeing as he did so the pallid glint of braid, a single plane of face above the dark enveloping cloak.

  Then the sergeant shut the door, the car already in motion and that was all; only the three of them: the old man who bore far too much rank to carry a lethal weapon even if he were not already too old to use it, and the driver whose hands were full with managing the car even if he had not had his back to him who could not remember in four days anyhow when there had not been one arm or two but from twenty to a thousand already cocked and triggered for his life; out of the alley and still no word — direction or command — from the old man in the braided invincible hat and the night-colored cloak in the corner opposite him, not back to the city but skirting through the fringe of it, faster and faster, pacing its cavernous echoes through the narrow ways of the deserted purlieus, taking the rapid turnings as if the mechanism itself knew their destination, making a long concentric through the city’s edge, the ground rising now so that even he began to know where they were probably going, the city itself beginning to tilt toward them as it sank away beneath; nor any word from the old man this time either: the car just stopped, and looking past the fine and delicate profile beneath what should have been the insuperable weight of the barred and braided hat, he could see not the Place de Ville itself, they were not that high above the city yet, but rather as though the concentration of its unwearyable and sleepless anxiety had taken on the glow and glare of light.