March 21, 1918 
Land & Water 
13 
The Allies: By "Centurion 
»i 
D 
OOZE oofs, see voo plaise ! Compronnay, 
madame ? " 
Marie Claire's lips parted and displayed two 
rows of teeth. They were filbert-shaped and 
v€ry white. 
" Oui, je comprends very well — what you call it ? Twelve 
■eerers, yes ? " , , , i j 
"Non dooze," said the sergeant, stoutly. And he held 
up two 'fingers. She noticed that the skin of the inside of 
his thumb and of the middle joint of his forefinger displayed 
a hard abrasion like a cobbler's. It's the trigger that does it. 
"Ah! deux! Ecoutez ! 'Un' c'est 'one.' 'Deux'c'est 
'two.' Dites-vous 'deux.' Comme^a!" And she expired 
the monosyllable from her lips as though she were blowing 
a kiss. 
"Do!" said the sergeant. 
"Kon, 'deux' !" ^ 
"Dew." 
"Bien ! Trd.-; bien, voilk ! " And she produced two eggs 
from their nest in the crate, and laid them on the counter. 
"Combien, madame?" 
"Vingt centimes. Mais 'madame' ! Pas encore ! 'Made- 
moiselle.' Anglais— 'Mees'. Voyez?" And she displayed the 
fingers of her left hend as though it were a parade inspection. 
The sergeant looked at them. With a sudden movement, 
he placed 'his hand upon them as they lay upon the counter. 
"Non !" she said coldly as she hastily withdrew her hand. 
" Fini ! Bon jour ! " And she turned her back upon him. 
Sergeant John Lawrence put his twenty centimes on the 
counter, took up his eggs, saluted, and walked out of the 
dpicerie without a word. He felt hot and uncomfortable. 
On the afternoon of the next day he came again. Before 
he could open his mouth, Marie Claire had placed two eggs 
on the counter. She looked at him abstractedly, as though 
he were a piece of household furniture rather the worse for 
wear, which might soon need replacing, and said indifferently : 
^' Vingt centimes." 
This df)ne, she turned to a shelf behind her, and began 
moving the jars of confitures, occasionally pursing her lips to 
blow away the dust. These expirations grew louder as he 
lingered until their blasting effect upon him emotionally 
produced the kind of functional paralysis associated with 
the effects of high explosive. He stood rooted to the spot, 
his eyes fixed on the back of her neck. He suddenly put 
down the purchase-money, pocketed the eggs, and walked 
out. After proceeding a hundred yards, with knit brows, 
he stopped and ruminated. Opposite him was a dead wall, 
the gable-end of a house. He put his hand in his pocket, 
drew out an egg, took a short run, like a man practising on 
■ a bombing-course, and, throwing from his hip, hurled the 
egg at the wall. He noted with gloomy satisfaction the 
protoplasmic effect, and taking the other egg, he hurled it 
after its predecessor. And he resumed his walk. 
Four day? succeeded one another, and each day Marie 
Claire rehearsed a frigid reception for Sergeant Lawrence. 
She rehearsed it in a newly ironed blouse and after carefully 
washing her hair. Each morning as she rose from petit 
ddjeuner she prepared herself to resent his appearance, each 
evening as she sat down to diner she felt unaccountably 
annoyed that he had not appeared. She began telling 
herself that it did not matter two sous to her whether he 
appeared or not. She told herself this very often. 
One evening, towards dusk, she was sitting behind the 
counter engaged in knitting a tricot. Her needles clicked 
mechanically as she gazed abstractedly at the wall, and 
occasionally she stopped to count the dropped stitches. She 
beard ik footstep, and looked up. Sergeant John Lawrence 
was st*ding at the counter. Before she had time to collect 
her thoughts he had vanished, vanishing as suddenly as he 
appeared ; so suddenlv that she began to doubt the evidence 
of her senses. But on the counter lay a rose. She stared 
at it for some time, and then suddenly took it up, burying 
her nose in its petals as she inhaled their fragrance. It was 
a Marechal Niel. She examined it, pulling back the petals 
as though she were peeling an artichoke. But there was 
nothing there. It was simply a rose. She sat with her chin 
upon her hands, trying to conjure up the appearance of the 
man who had laid it before her and wondering what it was 
about him that had seemed so unfamiliar. And as she mused 
it dawned on her that he had a rifle slung over his left 
shoulder, a pack on his back, a water-bottle on his hip. She 
rose and looked at the clock. 
Copyright ia th« Unitad SUtM. 
"Marie Claire! Marie Claire! Diner, Nom de . Dicu • 
J'ai une grande faim. La soupe est froide." 
She ignored this plaintive remonstrance, which came m a 
stertorous voice from the parlour behind the shop, and, 
slipping a shawl over her head, she stole out into the street. 
It was curiously empty. 
She crossed the Place, already steeped in shadows, and, 
having covered some 400 yards, she stopped. Ahead of her, 
in the middle of the street, were a number of soldiers drawn 
up in long lines two deep. They were in full marching kit, 
and in front of the nearest platoon a platoon-sergeant was 
calling the roll. It was Lawrence. He held a roll-book in 
his hand, and as he called each name, the owner shouted 
"Here" ; the sound was taken up in a series of repetitions, 
which as they collided acoustically with the same sounds 
from other platoons farther up the street, produced the 
effect of a prolonged echo. Having finished calling the roll 
Lawrence went up to the platoon-commander, saluted, and 
made his report. The company-commander took over. 
"FORM FOURS !-RIGHT! AT EASE ! QU-I-I-J-I- 
CK MARCH !" There was a shuffle of heavy feet, and the 
long lines dissolved into columns of fours. The men's feet 
went "CLIP-CLOP ! CLIP-CLOP !" on the pave with the 
rhythm of a pendulum. The next moment the street was 
empty, and Marie Claire was staring fixedly at the tail of the 
column oscillating like a tuning-fork from right to left as it 
receded in the distance in a cloud of dust. 
* * * 
Sergeant Lawrence, having cleaned his teeth with his Army 
tooth-brush, stood in front of a mirror and studied atten- 
tively a fixed smile— a smile which he produced and repro- 
duced with reflex movements of his maxillary muscles. 
It was a serious smile without mirth ; being intended, like 
the capacious smile of a "chorus" lady, for purely exhibition 
purposes. Dissatisfied with the result, he went over his 
teeth again with a piece of charcoal until their lustrous 
whiteness convinced him that art could do no more for 
nature. For some days he had knocked off cigarettes owing 
to their discolouring effect on the enamel ; he had also been 
at pains to remove, with the aid of a piece of pumice-stone, 
a large stain of a chemical brown on the inside of the middle 
finger of his right hand. His face glowed with the applica- 
tion of soap and hot water ; his buttons shone and twinkled 
like the stars of the firmament. 
At the end of an hour of these ministrations he pronounced 
himself "clean and regular," and, taking a small cane in his 
hand, he walked with an air of studied nonchalance down 
the street, a prey to a secret obsession that he was a subject 
of morbid curiosity to every passer-by. As he reached the 
corner of the rue Gamhetta he suddenly ran into Sergeant 
Robert Chipchase. 
"Hulloa, Jack !" said the other. "Going for a stroll ? 
"Y-yes," said John Lawrence. 
"I'll" come with you," said the other, sociably. 
Lawrence hesitated, and was lost. He fell into step 
beside his companion. He walked some distance, replying 
to conversational overtures with monosyllables. 
"Got the hump. Jack ? " said the other suddenly. 
"N-no," replied Lawrence. He stopped dead. "I've 
forgot my handkerchief." 
" Strewth ! I knew you had something preying on your 
mind, like. Why didn't you say so before, inate ? Here 
you are — use mine." And he tendered first aid. 
"Anything wrong with it ?" said the other, sensitively. 
V "No! No offence, I hope," said Lawrence. "The fact is, 
"Bob," he went on breathlessly, taking each full-stop at full 
gallop, " I-can't-walk-as-well-as-I-used-to-I-think-I've- 
a-touch-of-trench-feet-you'll- excuse - me-old - chap -no - 
no-I-can-get-back- to -billets- all- right -Don't -let -me - 
spoil-your-walk-Bob." He paused to take breath. "It'll 
do you good," he added, earnestly. "So long, old man." 
And he turned on his heel. 
His companion gazed after him. He walked slowly at 
first, but his feet appeared to recover their circulation with 
remarkable rapidity, and he was soon lost to sight. Sergeant 
Chipchase soliloquised. T-,,r-x7/-u 
"Sits in a corner of the mess mugging up hKEMCJl 
AND HOW TO SPEAK IT. Says a man ought to improve 
himself. Looks at a pal as if he wasn't there. Dreamy 
like. Never passes the time of day. Asked me if I heard 
a blooming nightingale. . . . Christ ! It's a wofmn ! 
And having finished his train of induction, he went on his 
way whistling. 
