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CHAPTER ONE

"They're marching pretty sloppy," said the younger one.

"So would you, if you'd been through what they have," the older one answered.

The two soldiers were standing, partly concealed, behind a roadside clump of trees. A light wind from the northeast brought a sound of distant gunfire which the older one recognized as the dying notes of the dawn bombardments. The attention of both men had become fixed on the body of troops which was approaching them down the road. It was a regiment of infantry, and, as it drew level with them, the uneven tramp of many feet that were not wholly in step grew louder and blotted out the sound of the distant artillery. The younger one began again:

"How d'you know they've been through anything?"

"There are several ways of telling," said the older one, getting ready to do the telling with a pause which expressed at the same time his boredom with the obvious and his pleasure in an opportunity to exercise his didactic impulse. "It's not that they're dirty and need a shave. You don't need a war to get that way. No. But look at their faces. See that sort of greyish tint to their skin? That's not from sitting in a cafe on a Sunday afternoon. Then look at some of those jaws. See how the lower jaw looks sort of loose, how it seems to hang down a bit? That's a reaction. It shows they've been clenching them. Take a look at their eyes. They're open, but they have the look of not seeing much of anything. They've had it tough, all right. Their eyes are glazed. They're nearly all of them constipated, of course, but it isn't so much that as..."

"Now I know you're fooling me. Everybody always says the front line acts on you just the other way."

"Is that so."

"Yes, it is. Why, only the other day I went to the medical officer for a pill. He said, 'You're going to join your regiment, aren't you?' I said, 'Yes, sir,' and he said, 'Well, here's your pill, but it's the last one you'll need till the war's over. The German artillerymen will keep your bowels open for you from now on."

"That doctor was a fool. And what's more, it's clear he's never been near the line or he wouldn't talk that way."

"But everybody—"

"Yes, I know. But don't forget this—all the hot air in this army isn't stored only at the balloon sections."

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean this. The Germans have got all our trench latrines registered. And we've got theirs, too. Now a soldier doesn't like to go to a place that's registered. What's more, he doesn't like to take his breeches down because when his breeches are down he can't jump or run. So what does he do? He bakes it. I've been out on this front for nearly two years and I haven't seen a case of diarrhoea yet. And the reason is that when men get scared they get tense and things inside them solidify. Functions stop. Secretions dry up. When you hear a shell coming straight at you, you hold everything, even your breath. You can't help it. That's why those fellows' faces look grey. Their skin is dry. So are their eyes, and from lack of sleep too. That's why they look glazed. For some reason their jaws seem to relax first. Every time a man comes out of the line something happens inside him like the mainspring busting in a watch. Besides, I happen to know those fellows have taken a terrible pounding up in the Souchez Valley."

"You know a lot, don't you?"

"No, not so much. I just keep my ears and eyes open, that's all. But I do know for a fact that they've had it tough because that's my regiment and I met a sergeant down at railhead who'd been wounded up there and he told me about it."

"What regiment is it?"

"I don't know that I ought to tell you. You ask so many questions you're probably a spy. That's the i8 1st Regiment of the line—or what's left of it."

"Say, that's the regiment I'm ordered to join. Let's follow along. We'll save ourselves a fifteen-kilometre hike to Villers and back again. Come on, grab your stuff—"

"Hey there, wait a minute. There's no hurry. Let me handle this and we'll be all right."

"Funny, I saw your numerals but somehow I didn't take it in. Excitement of going up to the front and all that, I suppose.... Say, my name is Duval. What's yours? Where are you coming from, anyway? Hospital?"

"No. First-Class Private Langlois. Late of Paradise, otherwise known as leave."

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