Energy books

Under a hedge, with our feet
in the ditch, we ate the luncheon we had carried in our pockets.
"A silly idea!" said the lanky man, with a fierce, sad look in his
eyes. He was Norman-Irish, and a man of letters, and a crack shot, and
all the boys he knew were being killed.
"What's silly?" I asked, wondering what particular foolishness he was
thinking of, in a world of folly.
"Silly to die with a broken bit of sandwich in one's mouth, just
because some German fellow, some fat, stupid man a few miles away,
looses off a bit of steel in search of the bodies of men with whom he
has no personal acquaintance."
"Damn silly," I said.
"That's all there is to it in modern warfare," said the lanky man."
It's not like the old way of fighting, body to body. Your strength
against your enemy's, your cunning against his. Now it is mechanics
and chemistry. What is the splendor of courage, the glory of youth,
when guns kill at fifteen miles?"
Afterward this man went close to the enemy, devised tricks to make him
show his head, and shot each head that showed.


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