They had a fine crowd of men. You
couldn't beat them. "Well, good morning! Must get on with the job."
There was no anguish there, no sense of despair, no sullen hatred of
this life, so near to death. They seemed to like it. . . They did not
really like it. They only made the best of it, without gloom. I saw
they did not like this job of battle, one evening in their mess behind
the line. The colonel who commanded them at the time, Celt of the
Celts, was in a queer mood. He was a queer man, aloof in his manner, a
little "fey." He was annoyed with three of his officers who had come
back late from three days' Paris leave. They were giants, but stood
like schoolboys before their master while he spoke ironical, bitter
words. Later in the evening he mentioned casually that they must
prepare to go into the line again under special orders. What about the
store of bombs, small-arms ammunition, machine-guns?
The officers were stricken into silence. They stared at one another as
though to say: "What does the old man mean? Is this true?" One of them
became rather pale, and there was a look of tragic resignation in his
eyes.
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