"But," said the soldier-artist, adjusting his steel hat nervously, "I
don't want to be killed! I hate the idea of it!"
He was the normal man. The elderly officer was abnormal. The normal
man, soldier without camouflage, had no use for death at all, unless
it was in connection with the fellow on the opposite side of the way.
He hated the notion of it applied to himself. He fought ferociously,
desperately, heroically, to escape it. Yet there were times, many
times, when he paid not the slightest attention to the near
neighborhood of that grisly specter, because in immediate, temporary
tranquillity he thrust the thought from his mind, and smoked a
cigarette, and exchanged a joke with the fellow at his elbow. There
were other times when, in a state of mental exaltation, or spiritual
self-sacrifice, or physical excitement, he acted regardless of all
risks and did mad, marvelous, almost miraculous things, hardly
conscious of his own acts, but impelled to do as he did by the passion
within him--passion of love, passion of hate, passion of fear, or
passion of pride.
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