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of the king, marshals of the empire, and generals of the republic.
    The squadron commander had established his H.Q. in a forester’s cottage. He had come out to greet his prisoner. They had saluted and introduced themselves; the major likewise bore a great name in the Wehrmacht and had fought gallantly.
    Glatigny had been struck by the close resemblance between these two men: the same piercing eyes set deep in their sockets, the same elegant formality of manner, the same thin lips and prominent beaky nose.
    He did not realize that he himself also resembled them.
    It was very early in the morning. Major de V—— invited Glatigny and his prisoner to have breakfast with him.
    The German and the Frenchman, completely at ease since they found themselves among people of their own caste, discussed the various places where they might have fought against each other since 1939 . To them it was of little consequence that one was the victor and the other the vanquished provided they had observed the rules and had fought bravely. They had a feeling of respect for each other and, what is more, a feeling of friendship.
    De V—— had the major driven to the P.O.W. camp in his own Jeep and, before taking leave of him, shook him by the hand. So did Glatigny.
    The
nha-que
battalion commander, who had listened to the “boy” interpreter as he translated Glatigny’s reply, now gave an order. A
bo-doi
laid down his rifle, came up to the captain and took a long cord of white nylon out of his pocket: a parachute rigging-line. He forced his arms behind his back and tied his elbows and wrists together with infinite care.
    Glatigny looked closely at the
nha-que
and it seemed to him that his half-closed eyes were like the slits in a visor through which someone far less master of himself was peering out at him. His triumph made him feel almost drunk. He would not be able to control himself much longer. He would have to burst out laughing or else strike him.
    But the slits in the visor closed and the
nha-que
spoke softly. The
bo-doi
, who had picked his rifle up again, motioned to the Frenchman to follow him.
    For several hours Glatigny trudged along trenches that were thigh-deep in mud, moving against the current of the columns of busy, specialist termites. There were soldier-termites, each with his palm-fibre helmet adorned with the yellow star on a red ground, male or female coolie-termites dressed in black who trotted along under their Vietnamese yokes or Thai panniers. At one stage he passed a column carrying hot rice in baskets.
    All these termites looked indistinguishable, and their faces betrayed no expression of any sort, not even one of those primitive feelings that sometimes disrupt the inscrutability of Asiatic features: fear, contentment, hate or anger. Nothing. The same sense of urgency impelled them towards a common but mysterious goal which lay beyond the present fighting. This hive of sexless insects seemed to operate by remote control, as though somewhere in the depths of this enclosed world there was a monstrous queen, a kind of central brain which acted as the collective consciousness of the termites.
    Glatigny now felt like one of those explorers invented by science-fiction writers, who suddenly find themselves plunged by some sort of time machine into a monstrous bygone age or a still more ghastly world to come.
    He could hardly keep his balance in the mud. The sentry escorting him kept repeating:
“Mau-len
,
mau-len
,
di-di
,
di-di
.
”
    He was brought to a halt at an intersection between two communication trenches. The
bo-doi
had a word with the post commander, a young Vietnamese who wore an American webbing belt and carried a Colt.
    He looked at the Frenchman with a smile that was almost friendly and asked:
    â€œDo you know Paris?”
    Glatigny began to see the end of his nightmare.
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œAnd the Quartier Latin? I was a law student. I used to feed at Père