THE BATTLE OF FRANCE

terminating the war in a solid and enduring peace,
the tone changed. For ten minutes at a time these
young men would expound vigorously what was
the will of France and then, quickly, the 'Artilleur de
Meti, with everybody swelling the chorus, would
make the lamps tremble.

'And now, popotier, tell us the story of the
Admiral Kornilov/

*. . . But this seems hardly the place to tell you
why the Admiral's beautiful wife broke coconuts
after she'd broken hazel-nuts/

And while a delicious mirabelle liqueur was going
the rounds, one of them gave us the Blue Danube
on an accordion. And nothing stirs the memory like
an accordion. The Captain thought of his approach-
ing leave: a lieutenant passed round a snapshot of his
'brats', two very pretty little girls. My friend
Duncan, a little nonplussed by all this un-English
noise, but none the less carried away by it, thought
of some lovely house in Somerset where he could
shoot pheasants: and I myself thought, not without
melancholy, how grand it would be to be twenty
and one of the crew.

When we left, dusk and mist were closing over
the enchanted mountain.

'Sing me again/ Duncan said, *ti&tArtilleur song.
... I quite liked it. . . .*

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