“He rises! He goes on! He takes one of his mighty leaps! Ah, God, if I only had a company of such men!”

His aide, squatted near by, muttered something under his breath. The captain spoke again. “He is very near their infernal little gun now. He has taken his rope. Ahaaaa! He spins it in the air. It falls. They are astonished. They rise up in the trench. Quick, Phèdre! Give me a rifle.” The rifle barked sharply four, five times. Its bullet found a mark. Then another. “Ahaaa! Two of them! And M. Danner now has his rope on that pig’s breath. It comes up. See! He has taken it under his arm! They are shooting their machine guns. He drops into a shell hole. He has been hit, but he is laughing at them. He leaps. Look out, Phèdre!”

Hugo landed behind the débris with a small German trench mortar in his arms. He set it on the floor. The captain opened his mouth, and Hugo waved to him to be silent. Deliberately, Hugo looked over the rickety parapet of loose stones. He elevated the muzzle of the gun and drew back the lanyard. The captain, grinning, watched through his glasses. The gun roared.

Its shell exploded presently on the brow of the enemy trench, tossing up a column of smoke and earth. “I should have brought some ammunition with me,” Hugo said.

Captain Crouan stared at the little gun. “Pig,” he said. “Son of a pig! Five of my men are in your little belly! Bah!” He kicked it.

Summer in Aix-au-Dixvaches. A tall Englishman addressing Captain Crouan. His voice was irritated by the heat. “Is it true that you French have an Indian scout here who can bash in those Minenwerfers?”

“Pardon, mon colonel, mais je ne comprends pas l’anglais.”

He began again in bad French. Captain Crouan smiled. “Ah? You are troubled there on your sector? You wish to borrow our astonishing soldier? It will be a pleasure, I assure you.”

Hot calm night. The sky pin-pricked with stars, the air redolent with the mushy flavour of dead meat. So strong it left a taste in the mouth. So strong that food and water tasted like faintly chlorinated putrescence. Hugo, his blue uniform darker with perspiration, tramped through the blackness to a dug-out. Fifteen minutes in candlelight with a man who spoke English in an odd manner.

“They’ve been raisin’ bloody hell with us from a point about there.” The tap of a pencil. “We’ve got little enough confidence in you, God knows—”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t be huffy. We’re obliged to your captain for the loan of you. But we’ve lost too many trying to take the place ourselves not to be fed up with it. I suppose you’ll want a raiding party?”

“No, thanks.”

“But, cripes, you can’t make it there alone.”