"Why?"
"I'm no better than you are. What business have you and I in heaven with our damned private job politics? Haven't you learned that yourself?"
They rode away towards the city, and separated at a corner lit dimly by a street lamp. Gard put his horse to a gallop and clattered away.
[Chapter XIX]
In which Windham Drops Out of the Fight—and Mavering Remarks on Human Adaptability
There was a steep hill-side, and below it a swift river, on the left the little village of Falmouth huddled in a gully, and beyond the village a higher hill, with a white house on the crest. Across the river, and farther down, the town of Fredericksburg was on fire in places, ruins here and there smoking lazily. From the town it was half a mile of meadow-land, hollowed and hillocked but flat in its main result, to the line of low hills, where the smoke rested thick and white, and the artillery did not rest at all, but growled and yelled unpacified. Certain regiments had watched since noon from this hill, seen column after column go over the dipping meadows, and sometimes a half, sometimes a third, come back. About four they marched down through the huddled village, crossed on a pontoon bridge into Fredericksburg, and drew up beyond the town. The shells shrieked over them. One exploded against a little wooden shanty, scattering splinters and dust. Two or three men dropped. One of them sat up at Gard's feet and rubbed his face.
"Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm scared."
"That's nothing."
"No, that's nothing."