It is
difficult to believe that each of those tiny spots is a living thing
with fragile and quivering flesh, infinitely unarmed in space, full
of deep thoughts, full of far memories and crowded pictures. One is
fascinated by this scattered dust of men as small as the stars in
the sky.
Poor unknowns, poor fellow-men, it is your turn to give battle.
Another time it will be ours. Perhaps to-morrow it will be ours to
feel the heavens burst over our heads or the earth open under our
feet, to be assailed by the prodigious plague of projectiles, to be
swept away by the blasts of a tornado a hundred thousand times
stronger than the tornado.
They urge us into the rearward shelters. For our eyes the field of
death vanishes. To our ears the thunder is deadened on the great
anvil of the clouds. The sound of universal destruction is still.
The squad surrounds itself with the familiar noises of life, and
sinks into the fondling littleness of the dug-outs.
______
[note 1] Military slang for machine-gun--Tr.
20
Under Fire
RUDELY awakened in the dark, I open my eyes: "What? What's up?"
"Your turn on guard--it's two o'clock in the morning," says Corporal
Bertrand at the opening into the hole where I am prostrate on the
floor. I hear him without seeing him.
"I'm coming," I growl, and shake myself, and yawn in the little
sepulchral shelter. I stretch my arms, and my hands touch the soft
and cold clay.
Pages:
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281