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The prisoner was
a little, handsome, dapper chap not over twenty-two years old, wearing
his trim blue-and-red uniform with an air, even though he himself looked
thoroughly miserable. We were warned not to speak with him, or he with
us; but Gerbeaux, after listening to him exchanging a few words with the
lieutenant, said he judged from his accent that the little officer was
from the south of France.
We silently offered him a bowl of the soup as he sat in a corner fenced
off from the rest of us by a small table; but he barely tasted it, and
after a bit he lay down in his corner, with his arm for a pillow, and
almost instantly was asleep, breathing heavily, like a man on the verge
of exhaustion. A few minutes later we heard, from Sergeant Rosenthal,
that the prisoner's brother-in-law had been killed the day before, and
that he--the little officer--had seen the brother-in-law fall.
Five p.m. We have had good news--two chunks of good news, in fact.
We are to dine and we are to travel.


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