Hundreds of Russians stood about together outside, in strange, poor,
scraped-together clothes, just as they had come from Germany, peering at
Fanny in silence through the open doorway.

"But I thought these were _liberated_ prisoners from Germany?"

"Don't ask me!" said the little man disgustedly. "I wish to heaven they
were all back in Germany. Look at me! I've fought in the Somme, the
Aisne, and Verdun, and now at the end of the war I'm left here to look
after these pigs!"

A sergeant entered. "A man to take the prisoner in the fourth cell up to
the doctor," he said sharply.

"It's not my turn," said the little man, aggrieved that the eye of the
sergeant should so rest on him. "It's yours!" he said to the man on the
bench beside him. "It's yours!" replied this man to the next.

"Yes, it's Chaumet's! Yes, it's Chaumet's, _va-t'en_!" they all said,
and a man with a cast in his eye got up slowly, grumbling, and turned
towards the door.

"Here, dress yourself!"

"What, to take a ... to the doctor?"

He pulled his belt and gun off the rack with an ill-will and
disappeared, buckling it on.