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

don’t mean to be judgmental, but you don’t seemed to have given him much affection, this dog of yours.”
    â€œI’ve told you. That’s the way I am. But I was his master and he knew that.”
    â€œAll in all, he stayed with you for the whole of the war.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDid you have much fighting on that front?”
    â€œNot really. It was a strange war, with very little contact. One time we bumped into an Austrian patrol by chance. We had to use our bayonets to get out of that. It was the first time I saw Wilhelm in action. He understood who were the enemies and attacked the Austrians, he got it right every time.”
    â€œYou didn’t get a mention for that combat.”
    â€œThere was no reason to,” Morlac said dismissively. “There was nothing glorious about it. We saved our own skins, that’s all. And Fritz could only think of one thing, and that was getting away, too.”
    â€œWhat did you do the rest of the time?”
    â€œRoutine things: patrols, guard duties, a bit of reconnaissance. But most of all we were sick. It’s a very bad climate. I avoided malaria but I got terrible dysentery. As you seem interested in the dog, I can tell you he watched over me the whole time I was ill and went to find help every time I needed something.”
    Now that Lantier knew Wilhelm a little, he was very touched by this devotion he’d shown during the war. But it only made his master’s coldness all the more surprising. The fact that, like all country folk, Morlac had had a utilitarian relationship with animals, deprived of any effusive emotion—that Lantier could understand. But there seemed to be something else, some sort of resentment. What had happened between them that the prisoner wasn’t saying?
    The investigator dug deeper.
    â€œDid Wilhelm take part in the fighting that earned you the mention?” he asked.
    Morlac had taken four or five drags on his cigarette in succession. Smoking had a visibly relaxing effect on him. He leaned back until his head touched the wall. He stayed in that position for a long time and then sat up again abruptly and looked at Lantier.
    â€œIt’s a long story, sir. We’d be more comfortable going through it outside, don’t you think? Couldn’t we go out for a walk?”
    Lantier wasn’t far from having the same idea himself. He’d almost had enough of this dark cell with its stuffy tobacco smell when the weather outside was so beautiful. He was reaching the decisive part of Morlac’s story, and wanted to secure the man’s trust.
    â€œYou’re right. We could walk around the yard.”
    It wasn’t the appointed time but there were, after all, no other prisoners and Dujeux could perfectly well open up the space used as an exercise yard. The major went to find the guard who came over all important and thought about it at length in silence, considering whether such a request was compatible with the regulations. Lantier ended up making the decision for him by telling him it was an order.
    The jailer grumbled to himself as he turned the key in the lock, and the two men went out into an area the size of a tennis court. Grass and mounds of moss between the paving stones were yellowing under the effects of the midsummer heat. They would have the whole rest of the year to soak up moisture. The surrounding walls were of rough-hewn stone and the thick pointing in crumbling cement gave the whole thing a medieval look. Over this charmless, ageless courtyard hung the canopy of an indigo sky with small, orangey clouds drifting slowly overhead. The top of a larch appeared above the wall.
    Morlac looked very happy to be breathing in the open air. Lantier got the impression that his imprisonment didn’t trouble him so long as he could see the sky.
    They cut diagonally across the yard, then started strolling around the outside, as prisoners do the world over.
    â€œI