Part 29 (1/2)

It is all right! Juve would be surprised, anxious, would make enquiries at the Company's offices, would learn that on the Sunday evening Fandor had occupied the place reserved for him in the sleeping-car, would be rea.s.sured, would not worry about Fandor's abrupt departure and silence--Fandor was holiday making!

”Yes, it is all right!” reiterated Fandor. ”What I have to do is to throw myself wholeheartedly into my part, and play it as jovially as possible!”

The train whistled, slowed down, entered the station of Verdun.

Fandor let the crowd of soldiers precede him, as well as one or two civilians whom the night express had brought to this important frontier fortress. Having readjusted his coat, the fringes of his epaulettes, and put on his cap correctly, this corporal of the 257th line, stepped on to the platform, reached the exit, pa.s.sed out on to a vast flat s.p.a.ce, and found himself floundering in a sea of mud.

The men who had arrived with him had hurried off: Fandor was alone on the outskirts of the silent town.

What to do? Which way to go?

Under the flame of a gas-jet struggling against the onslaughts of the wind, Fandor caught sight of the honest face of a constable enveloped in a thick hooded coat. He eyed Fandor.

”Excuse me,” said Corporal Vinson-Fandor, rolling his r's, in imitation of a rustic fresh from the country, ”but could you tell me where I shall find the 257th of the line?”

”What do you want with the 257th of the line?” queried the constable.

”It is like this, Monsieur: I was in the 214th, garrisoned at Chalons.

I have had eight days' leave, and they inform me I am attached to the 257th.”

The constable nodded.

”And now you want to get to your new regiment?”

”Precisely.”

”Well, the 257th is in three places: at bastion 14; at the Saint Benoit barracks; and at Fort Vieux--which are you bound for, Corporal?”

”I don't know--I've no preference,” murmured Corporal Vinson-Fandor.

The two men stood staring at each other in the rain.

Despite the chill and melancholy dawn, with its darkly reddening skies, Fandor felt he was on the very verge of bursting into wild laughter.

”Let us see your route instructions,” quoth the constable.

Corporal Vinson-Fandor showed his paper.

”That's it!” cried the constable triumphantly. ”You are down to report yourself at the Saint Benoit barracks. You're in luck, my lad! It's only fifty yards or so from here!... Go down the road, and you will see the barrack wall on the left. The entrance is in the middle.”

Fandor saluted the friendly constable, hurried off, and reached the Saint Benoit gate in a few minutes.

”The 257th?” he asked the sentry.

”Here!... You will find the sergeant in the guard-room.”

Fandor entered a smoke-filled room; several soldiers were stretched at full length on a bench, slumbering: a snoring non-commissioned officer was lying on three straw bottomed chairs close to a stove.

At Fandor's entrance he was wide awake in a moment: he swore: it was the sergeant.