"
He stretched his arms over his head--a tall figure of a man, but bent at
the shoulders, as if all the dreariness of his surroundings had settled
there. He had the stoop of an old man, and the walk. He stepped out of
his room, into the street, and stood a moment in the midday sunshine,
blinking. Then he walked down the village street to the Poste, and
pushed through the dressing-rooms to the dining-room at the rear. The
doctors looked up as he entered. He nodded, but gave no speech back for
their courteous, their cordial greeting. In silence he ate the simple
relishes of sardines and olives. Then the treat of the luncheon was
brought in by the orderly. It was a duckling, taken from a refugee farm,
and done to a brown crisp. The head doctor carved and served it.
"See here," said Watts loudly. He lifted his wing of the duckling where
a dead fly was cooked in with the gravy. He pushed his chair back. It
grated shrilly on the stone floor. He rose.
"Flies," he said, and left the room.
* * * * *
Watts was the guest at the informal trench luncheon. The officers showed
him little favors from time to time, for he had served their wounded
faithfully for many months. It is the highest honor they can pay when
they admit a civilian to the first line of trenches. Shelling from
Westend was mild and inaccurate, going high overhead and falling with a
mutter into the seven-times wrecked and thoroughly deserted houses of
Nieuport village.
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