Fais le service: Wait on us

51, 23. depuis deux jours, que faites-vous: what hâve you been doing for the last two days? To express that an action or a State has been going on for some time and is still going on, the French use the présent of the indicative with the préposition depuis before the expression of time. The English use the past indefinite of the progressive form with the préposition for.

52, 24. cité à l’ordre du jour: mentioned in the official citations.

54, 4. Ce qu’ ... de: See note to page 26, line 4.

9. Alan Seeger: a young American poet of great ability, ,who enlisted in the Foreign Légion during the third year of the war. His service as a soldier was characterized by his courageous

NOTES

enthusiasm and cheerfulness. He died as the resuit of wounds received in battle, July 5, 1916.

55, 11. en Alsace: Alsace, after having been annexed to the German empire from 1871 to 1918, is now a part of France. Its main towns are Strassburg, Colmar, and Mulhouse.

12. la Somme: a river in northern France. There was a great Anglo-French offensive in the valley of the Somme in 1916 (July- October).

21. lui avait fait retrouver le caporal: Note the use of lui. When the verb following faire has a direct object of its own, the object of faire (which is the real subject of the following verb) is treated as if it were an indirect object. Use the direct object in English.

57, 5. et ne voilà-t-il pas que: and ail of a sudden. Note that when voilà is used negatively, it is followed by - t-il as if it were the third person singular of a verb ending with a vowel. Compare: parle-t-il? parla-t-il? parlera-t-il?

15. Secteur postal: To prevent the location of the various troops from becoming known to the enemy, the front from the North Sea to the German frontier was divided into postal sectors, which were designated by numbers.