Inside Barracks 3, Rousseau was balancing a tin cup on Girard's snoring mouth, while Faure was attempting to light a cigarette with a broken match.
"I swear, these are sabotage matches," he muttered.
"Maybe the Germans sent 'em," Delcourt said from his bunk, eyes still half-closed. "Economic warfare."
Benoit, meanwhile, was trying to write "The Great Rations Theft" on a potato with a penknife.
Chalon had yet to appear.
The mood was light, almost festive.
Just another day of training, mud, shouting, and harmless suffering.
Then the horn sounded.
Not the usual bugle.
Not Chalon's shriek.
It was a flat, urgent tone.
A sustained alarm.
One long note.
Cold.
Mechanical.
Faure blinked. "That's not the breakfast horn."
Everyone in the room froze.
Lemaitre stepped in from the hallway, face pale, helmet strapped under his chin. "Orders just came down. Real ones. Mobilization."
"Shut up," Rousseau said. "It's just another drill. They do this every few weeks."
