"
"All the same," grumbled the squatting chasseur in his turn, "there
are some that fight with quite another idea than that in their
heads. I've seen some of 'em, young men, who said, 'To hell with
humanitarian ideas'; what mattered to them was nationality and
nothing else, and the war was a question of fatherlands--let every
man make a shine about his own. They were fighting, those chaps, and
they were fighting well."
"They're young, the lads you're talking about; they're young, and we
must excuse 'em."
"You can do a thing well without knowing what you are doing."
"Men are mad, that's true. You'll never say that often enough."
"The Jingoes--they're vermin," growled a shadow.
Several times they repeated, as though feeling their way, "War must
be killed; war itself."
"That's all silly talk. What diff does it make whether you think
this or that? We've got to be winners, that's all."
But the others had begun to cast about. They wanted to know and to
see farther than to-day. They throbbed with the effort to beget in
themselves some light of wisdom and of will. Some sparse convictions
whirled in their minds, and jumbled scraps of creeds issued from
their lips.
"Of course--yes--but we must look at facts--you've got to think
about the object, old chap."
"The object? To be winners in this war," the pillar-man insisted,
"isn't that an object?"
Two there were who replied together, "No!"
* * * * * *
At this moment there was a dull noise; cries broke out around us,
and we shuddered.
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