It might be our turn next, as we might go under
to-day or to-morrow; who could tell when the turn of the next would
come? And all that day I was haunted by the figure of the youth who
was staring so vacantly over the rim of the trench, heedless of the
bursting shells and indifferent to his own safety.
The enemy shelled persistently. Their objective was the ruined church,
but most of their shells flew wide or went over their mark, and made
matters lively in Harley Street, which ran behind the house of God.
"Why do they keep shellin' the church?" Bill asked the engineer, (p. 067)
who never left the parapet even when the shells were bursting barely a
hundred yards away. Like the rest of us, Bill took the precaution to
duck when he heard the sound of the explosion.
"That's what they always do," said Stoner, "I never believed it even
when I read it in the papers at home, but now--"
"They think that we've ammunition stored there," said the engineer,
"and they always keep potting at the place."
"But have we?"
"I dunno."
"We wouldn't do it," said Kore, who was of a rather religious turn of
mind. "But they, the bounders, would do anything. Are they the brutes
the papers make them out to be? Do they use dum-dum bullets?"
"This is war, and men do things that they'd not do in the ordinary
way," was the noncommittal answer of the Engineer.
"Have you seen many killed?" asked Mervin.
"Killed!" said the man on the parapet.
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