"
"Ah!" they say. It is too much effort for their imagination; they
lose interest and sicken of the magnitude of these figures. They
yawn, and with watering eyes they follow, in the confusion of haste
and shouts and smoke, of roars and gleams and flashes, the terrible
line of the armored train that moves in the distance, with fire in
the sky behind it.
______
[note 1:] The word is likely to become of international usage. It
stands for the use of paint in blotches of different colors, and of
branches and other things to disguise almost any object that may be
visible to hostile aircraft.--Tr.
[note 2:] Non-combatant.--Tr.
[note 3:] Akin to the British A.S.C.--Tr.
8
On Leave
EUDORE sat down awhile, there by the roadside well, before taking
the path over the fields that led to the trenches, his hands crossed
over one knee, his pale face uplifted. He had no mustache under his
nose--only a little flat smear over each corner of his mouth. He
whistled, and then yawned in the face of the morning till the tears
came.
An artilleryman who was quartered on the edge of the wood--over
there where a line of horses and carts looked like a gypsies'
bivouac--came up, with the well in his mind, and two canvas buckets
that danced at the end of his arms in time with his feet. In front
of the sleepy unarmed soldier with a bulging bag he stood fast.
"On leave?"
"Yes," said Eudore; "just back."
"Good for you," said the gunner as he made off.
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