A length of earth had detached itself from the
hillock on which--after a fashion--we were leaning back, and had
completely exhumed in the middle of us a sitting corpse, with its
legs out full length. The collapse burst a pool that had gathered on
the top of the mound, and the water spread like a cascade over the
body and laved it as we looked.
Some one cried, "His face is all black!"
"What is that face?" gasped a voice.
Those who were able drew near in a circle, like frogs. We could not
gaze upon the head that showed in low relief upon the trench-wall
that the landslide had laid bare. "His face? It isn't his face!" In
place of the face we found the hair, and then we saw that the corpse
which had seemed to be sitting was broken, and folded the wrong way.
In dreadful silence we looked on the vertical back of the dislocated
dead, upon the hanging arms, backward curved, and the two
outstretched legs that rested on the sinking soil by the points of
the toes. Then the discussion began again, revived by this fearful
sleeper. As though the corpse was listening they clamored--"No! To
win isn't the object. It isn't those others we've got to get
at--it's war."
"Can't you see that we've got to finish with war? If we've got to
begin again some day, all that's been done is no good. Look at it
there!--and it would be in vain. It would be two or three years or
more of wasted catastrophe."
* * * * * *
"Ah, my boy, if all we've gone through wasn't the end of this great
calamity! I value my life; I've got my wife, my family, my home
around them; I've got schemes for my life afterwards, mind you.
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