They were side by side, face upwards, in a disused trench that
branched off from ours; the hand of one lay across the arm of the
other, and the legs of both were curled up to their knees, almost
touching their chests. They were mere boys, clean of lip and chin and
smooth of forehead, no wrinkles had ever traced a furrow there. One's
hat was off, it lay on the floor under his head. A slight red spot
showed on his throat, there was no trace of a wound. His mate's
clothes were cut away across the belly, the shrapnel had entered there
under the navel, and a little blood was oozing out on to the trouser's
waist, and giving a darkish tint to the brown of the khaki. Two
stretcher-bearers were standing by, feeling, if one could judge by the
dejected look on their faces, impotent in the face of such a calamity.
Two first field dressings, one open and the contents trod on the
ground, the other fresh as when it left the hands of the makers, (p. 066)
lay idle beside the dead man. A little distance to the rear a
youngster was looking vacantly across the parapet, his eyes fixed on
the ruined church in front, but his mind seemed to be deep in
something else, a problem which he failed to solve.
One of the stretcher-bearers pointed at the youth, then at the hatless
body in the trench.
"Brothers," he said.
For a moment a selfish feeling of satisfaction welled up in our lungs.
Teak gave it expression, his teeth chattering even as he spoke, "It
might be two of us, but it isn't," and somehow with the thought came a
sensation of fear.
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