emptiness, with their feet on barren earth. Four poilus are setting
up a table. The open-air smithy is smoking. This heterogeneous and
swarming city, planted in ruined fields whose straight or winding
ruts are stiffening in the heat, is already broadly valanced with
rubbish and dung.

On the edge of the camp a big, white-painted van stands out from the
others in its tidy cleanliness. Had it been in the middle of a fair,
one would have said it was the stylish show where one pays more than
at the others.

This is the celebrated "stomatological" van that Blaire was asking
about. In point of fact, Blaire is there in front, looking at it.
For some long time, no doubt, he has been going round it and gazing.
Field-hospital orderly Sambremeuse, of the Division, returning from
errands, is climbing the portable stair of painted wood which leads
to the van door. In his arms he carries a bulky box of biscuits, a
loaf of fancy bread, and a bottle of champagne. Blaire questions
him--"Tell me, Sir Rump, this horse-box--is it the dentist's?"

"It's written up there," replies Sambremeuse--a little corpulent
man, clean, close-shaven, and his chin starch-white. "If you can't
see it, you don't want the dentist to look after your grinders, you
want the vet to clean your eyesight."

Blaire comes nearer and scrutinizes the establishment. "It's a queer
shop," he says. He goes nearer yet, draws back, hesitates to risk
his gums in that carriage. At last he decides, puts a foot on the
stair, and disappears inside the caravan.