So if ordinary men said that he and his kind had brought them to this nightmare, to this meaningless wasteland, he would have to acknowledge that they were right. And that perhaps their mutiny, for which they were to be shot, was the only sane act of the last four years.

And when it was all done, what story would be told? He did not know. Would tales of glory be invented? Or would there be a great silence? Men who have been tortured do not wish to speak of it. They close the memory in a lead-lined box and leave it in the cellar of the mind. Perhaps it would be like that. Or perhaps there would be a revolution.

He heard the sound of a rifle bolt behind him. Then a voice.

“If you reach for your revolver, I shall fire.”

He turned slowly.

“Le Sourd. I heard you were here.”

“We are quite alone. Did you know that there is a German sniper out there? I thought I would shoot you before he did.”

“I should have thought of that. It has been a long time. Aren’t you running some risk yourself?”

“I could say I went forward to warn you about the sniper, but that he got you. Then I could shoot some rounds toward the German lines.”

“You might get away with it. You might not.”

“I shan’t bother. They’re going to shoot me anyway as a mutineer, so I have nothing to lose.”

“Perhaps they will not charge you with mutiny.”

“I think they will.”

Roland de Cygne gazed at Le Sourd. He could have told him that he wasn’t going to be charged, but that would have looked as if he were trying to curry favor, a weakness for which Le Sourd would have rightly despised him. Roland was too proud for that.

“Perhaps,” he said calmly, “when you have shot me—and I advise you to stick with the story of the sniper, it’s worth a try—you will do me a small favor. In my pocket, you will find a lighter that a trooper once made for me. It’s just a little thing. You can send it to my son, and tell him that I asked you to do so. I should like him to know that I was thinking of him. That is all.”

“You are asking me to do you a favor?”

“Why not? With my death you have avenged your father. Matters between us are settled. You have no reason to refuse a small kindness to my son.”

Le Sourd gazed at him.