"Gawd, yes! The gor-blimey parson!"
"Pass the word to retire," I commanded. "Hang it! We seem to have done the job we set out to do."
§8
Covered with blood and dust, my jacket torn, I came half an hour later upon Monty, where he was sitting wearily upon a mound. I had but one question to ask him.
"Is he dead?"
"No. Hit in the shoulder the first time. Then, after he got up and bombed the gun, hit four times in the waist."
"Will he die?"
"Of course."
I walked away, as a man does from one who has cruelly hurt him.
"O Christ!" I said, just blasphemously, for in that moment of tearless agony all my moral values collapsed. "O Christ! Damn beauty! Damn everything!" Then there came a disorder of the mind, in which I could only repeat to myself: "The Germans are coming, oh dear, oh dear. The Germans are coming, oh dear, oh dear. The Germans—Oh, drop it, for God's sake, drop it!"