From the depth of his neck up to the tufts
of hair that stick to the brim of his cap is just an earthy mass,
the face become an anthill, and two rotten berries in place of the
eyes. Another is a dried emptiness flat on its belly, the back in
tatters that almost flutter, the hands, feet, and face enrooted in
the soil.
"Look! It's a new one, this--"
In the middle of the plateau and in the depth of the rainy and
bitter air, on the ghastly morrow of this debauch of slaughter,
there is a head planted in the ground, a wet and bloodless head,
with a heavy beard.
It is one of ours, and the helmet is beside it. The distended
eyelids permit a little to be seen of the dull porcelain of his
eyes, and one lip shines like a slug in the shapeless beard. No
doubt he fell into a shell-hole, which was filled up by another
shell, burying him up to the neck like the cat's-head German of the
Red Tavern at Souchez.
"I don't know him," says Joseph, who has come up very slowly and
speaks with difficulty.
"I recognize him," replies Volpatte.
"That bearded man?" says Joseph.
"He has no beard. Look--" Stooping, Volpatte passes the end of his
stick under the chin of the corpse and breaks off a sort of slab of
mud in which the head was set, a slab that looked like a beard. Then
he picks up the dead man's helmet and puts it on his head, and for a
moment holds before the eyes the round handles of his famous
scissors so as to imitate spectacles.
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