"Look here, my friend, you know very well it is forbidden to wrap the
legs in sandbags----"
"General, it's for the filth----"
"These sandbags cost the Government more than ten _sous_ a piece----"
"General, it's for the filth----"
"It is not permitted to waste material destined for the trenches."
"General, it's for the filth----"
"For what?"
"The filth."
"The filth?"
"Ah! general, it is all that you see here: the mud, the dirt, the bugs,
with trampled boxes of _singe_ and sardines under foot. This damned
soil, which--which smells bad--general, all this is filth!"[17]