061)
and the old horses held him in bondage. There was no other world for
the man; he was a dumb worker, crawling along at the rear of the
destructive demon War, repairing, as far as he was able, the damage
which had been done.
We came to a village, literally buried. Holes dug by high explosive
shells in the roadway were filled up with fallen masonry. This was a
point at which the transports stopped. Beyond this, man was the beast
of burden--the thing that with scissors-like precision cut off, pace
by pace, the distance between him and the trenches. There is something
pathetic in the forward crawl, in the automatic motion of boots rising
and falling at the same moment; the gleaming sword handles waving
backwards and forwards over the hip, and, above all, in the
stretcher-bearers with stretchers slung over their shoulders marching
along in rear. The march to battle breathes of something of an
inevitable event, of forces moving towards a destined end. All
individuality is lost, the thinking ego is effaced, the men are spokes
in a mighty wheel, one moving because the other must, all fearing
death as hearty men fear it, and all bent towards the same goal.
We were marched to a red brick building with a shrapnel-shivered (p. 062)
roof, and picks and shovels were handed out to us.
"You've got to help to widen the communication trench to-day!" we were
told by an R.E. officer who had taken charge of our platoon.
As we were about to start a sound made quite familiar to me what time
I was in England as a marker at our rifle butts, cut through the air,
and at the same moment one of the stray dogs which haunt their old and
now unfamiliar localities like ghosts, yelled in anguish as he was
sniffing the gutter, and dropped limply to the pavement.
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