The Red Collar by Jean-Christophe Rufin, Adriana Hunter Page A

facing each other like in Picardie or the Somme. The enemy positions were quite a way off. We hid in holes and we often moved around. The artillery fired blindly.”
    â€œAny mud?”
    â€œNot too much. But it was hot in summer and freezing in winter. Unbelievable differences in temperature. The hardest thing was definitely that we spent long stretches of time on the front line. The Oriental Force was always short of men. No troops came to relieve us. We were so, so bored, weeks on end like that.”
    â€œWhat did you do?”
    â€œWell, I read.”
    â€œDid the others?”
    â€œNot so much.”
    Lantier made up his mind to ask some questions he hadn’t clearly formulated the previous day, when he’d seen him reading Victor Hugo.
    â€œAnd how is it that you could read? You left school very young, from what I think I know.”
    Morlac muttered to himself.
    â€œI like reading, there’s no harm in that,” he said.
    â€œYou must have acquired this taste for reading from someone?”
    The prisoner shrugged. “Possibly.”
    Lantier decided the moment had come. He put down his notes and stood up. He took a couple of steps toward the far wall which was covered in obscene graffiti. Then he spun round and said, “I went to visit you wife this morning. You don’t seem to be in a hurry to get back to her. But I do think she’s waiting for you.”
    â€œShe’s not my wife.”
    â€œBut she’s the mother of your child.”
    Morlac’s eyes suddenly flashed with hate.
    â€œMind your own business! Anyway, that’s enough of this interrogating. Sentence me to death and be done with it.”
    â€œIn that case,” Lantier replied, “let’s get back to your dog, because this is about him.”
    He was briefly tempted to describe his moment alone with Wilhelm, on the bench. But he was keen to maintain his authority as an investigating officer, and this anecdote ran the risk of looking like familiarity. His curt tone of voice and the way he’d buried himself in his notes had their effect on Morlac, who dropped his head, like a reprimanded schoolboy.
    â€œAfter more than a month at the front and in the surrounding area,” he carried on automatically, “we were evacuated to Monastir. It was the end of the spring offensive. Wilhelm couldn’t come with us because he had an injury in his side from a shell blast.”
    â€œDid you leave him at the front?”
    â€œThe guy who took over my blockhouse agreed to look after him. He was a Serb, evacuated to Corfu after the defeat in Belgrade. He had a funny way of looking at Wilhelm. I got the feeling he’d eaten quite a lot of dogs during the retreat. All I asked was that he bury him if he did die.”
    â€œBut he didn’t die.”
    â€œNo, he’s a tough nut, that dog. When he was pretty much healed he made the journey on his own, through the Vardar gorges to Monastir. He was hit about the head with sticks, and when he arrived his eyes were almost closed from all the blood that had trickled into them.”
    â€œThen what?”
    â€œWe spent the winter in a billet and that’s what saved us. The cold there is incredible. Apart from the mountain infantry boys, no one had seen temperatures like it. When we were sent back to the front in March, there were still seven-foot snowdrifts along the side of the road.”
    â€œAnd the dog was still going strong?”
    â€œHe got his strength back in Monastir. I didn’t take much care of him. But there was an English fusilier, I used to play cards with him in the evenings, and he really took to him. You know what the English are like with animals. He’d bring him stuff to eat, leftover rations, not scraps. And he even found some disinfectant for the wounds on his back.”
    â€œWasn’t the dog tempted to stay with the Englishman?” Lantier asked with genuine interest. “I