It will continue for their conquerors who still live. Death has once more made her choice. The prisoners are safe. Those others who took them will die perhaps to-morrow, on this same ground or on another. Satiated to-day, the Grim Monster is reserving them: they are kept for a coming feast of death.
How well they know it! but they care not at all. They are tired and happy. They wander about the captured trench and gather up little nothings: fragments of clothing, pieces of arms, splinters of cartridges. They go to and fro; or, impassive, they choose a corner and go to sleep, indifferent to the shells, to the battle which is dying out; indifferent to to-day and to-morrow.
They know their task is accomplished.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The trial of Mme. Caillaux for the murder of the editor of Le Figaro.—Translator.
[B] “Les compagnons—ceux avec qui on rompt le pain.”
[C] The banquette is about eighteen inches above the pathway at the bottom of the trench. The men stand here when firing or when on guard.—Translators’ Note.
[D] The trenches were about seven feet deep. On the forward side was a step, or ledge, on which the men could stand when shooting.—Translators’ Note.
[E] It has been found that water must not touch the skin for many hours after suffering a gas attack. The chemical action of the water rots the flesh. For the same reason the “poilu” is now clean-shaven: the poison of gas remains in a beard for days, and perspiration adds to the dangers of inhalation.—Translator.
[F] Literally, “I am gnawing them away.”