Jean backed into a lane and turned the car round. After that Henri got
in and they went rapidly back toward the Front. It was a different
Henri, however, who left the car a mile from the crossroads--a Henri in
the uniform of a French private soldier, one of those odd and
impracticable uniforms of France during the first year, baggy dark blue
trousers, stiff cap, and the long-tailed coat, its skirts turned back
and faced. Round his neck he wore a knitted scarf, which covered his
chin, and, true to the instinct of the French peasant in a winter
campaign, he wore innumerable undergarments, the red of a jersey showing
through rents in his coat.
Gone were Henri's long clean lines, his small waist and broad shoulders,
the swing of his walk. Instead, he walked with the bent-kneed swing of
the French infantryman, that tireless but awkward marching step which
renders the French Army so mobile.
He carried all the impedimenta of a man going into the trenches, an
extra jar of water, a flat loaf of bread strapped to his haversack, and
an intrenching tool jingling at his belt.
Even Jean smiled as he watched him moving along toward the crowded
crossroads--smiled and then sighed.
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