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Here and there shell-shocked boys sat weeping or
moaning, and shaking with an ague. Most of the wounded were quiet and
did not give any groan or moan. The lightly wounded sat in groups,
telling their adventures, cursing the German machine-gunners. Young
officers spoke in a different way, and with that sporting spirit which
they had learned in public schools praised their enemy.
"The machine-gunners are wonderful fellows--topping. Fight until
they're killed. They gave us hell."
Each man among those thousands of wounded had escaped death a dozen
times or more by the merest flukes of luck. It was this luck of theirs
which they hugged with a kind of laughing excitement.
"It's a marvel I'm here! That shell burst all round me. Killed six of
my pals. I've got through with a blighty wound. No bones broken. . .
God! What luck!"
The death of other men did not grieve them. They could not waste this
sense of luck in pity. The escape of their own individuality, this
possession of life, was a glorious thought.


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