But up to
midnight there were little lights flashing for a second and then going
out, along the Street of the Three Pebbles and in the dark corners of
side-streets. They were carried by girls seeking to entice English
officers on their way to their billets, and they clustered like
glowworms about the side door of the Hotel du Rhin after nine o'clock,
and outside the railings of the public gardens. As one passed, the
bright bull's-eye from a pocket torch flashed in one's eyes, and in
the radiance of it one saw a girl's face, laughing, coming very close,
while her fingers felt for one's badge.
"How dark it is to-night, little captain! Are you not afraid of
darkness? I am full of fear. It is so sad, this war, so dismal! It is
comradeship that helps one now! . . . A little love . . . a little
laughter, and then--who knows?"
A little love . . . a little laughter--alluring words to boys out of
one battle, expecting another, hating it all, lonely in their souls
because of the thought of death, in exile from their own folk, in
exile from all womanhood and tender, feminine things, up there in the
ditches and shellcraters of the desert fields, or in the huts of
headquarters staffs, or in reserve camps behind the fighting-line.
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