“It was from his woman, his German grue. Perhaps even now she doesn’t know he’s dead. She thinks of him wearing this next to his heart. ’Cré nom de Dieu! It was I that killed him a week ago!”

He held up something in his hand, and the light through the estaminet window gleamed on it. It was a woman’s lock of hair, like finespun gold.

The two women gave a shrill cry of surprise, and then screamed with laughter. One of them tried to grab the hair, but the poilu held it high, beyond her reach, with a gruff command of, “Hands off!” Other soldiers and women in the estaminet gathered round staring at the yellow tress, laughing, making ribald conjectures as to the character of the woman from whose head it had come. They agreed that she was fat and ugly, like all German women, and a foul slut.

“She’ll never kiss that fellow again,” said one man. “Our old one has cut the throat of that pig of a Boche!”