“... honour, the honour of my country, honour—honour?”
“No!”
“... Sozialdemokrat—for world-peace I fought, that the world might have peace. Is there peace?”
“No!”
“... curé of Weerloo, dead for my church and my flock. Are we victorious?”
“No!”
“Ask, Grutje, ask!” trilled a child’s voice, and a sad shriek answered it: “Home—the little farm on the road to Elewyt beside Kasteel Weerde—is it safe?”
I knew that farm, a blackened ruin like the castle beside it, with two lath crosses leaning crazily over sunken graves in the dooryard. “No!”
“No, no, no!” The horrid refrain beat them back. By ones and tens and hundreds they asked and were denied. They had died as most men live, hoping to-morrow would bring bliss which yesterday withheld. They had died, as most men live, for dreams. In all the world there was no consolation for them, no word of honest hope or recompense. In all the world there was nothing for them but a shallow grave and a little wooden cross.
“I came from Devon to Antwerp, sir, with the Marines. Have we whipped the Huns?”