“Ah'd liever be at an O. T. C. like that bastard Anderson.”
“Oh, to hell with that,” said Andrews. He still had a big faded orange marigold in one of the buttonholes of his soiled tunic. He walked with his nose in the air and his nostrils dilated, enjoying the tang of the autumnal sunlight.
Chrisfield took the cigarette, that had gone out half-smoked, from his mouth and spat savagely at the heels of the man in front of him.
“This ain't no life for a white man,” he said.
“I'd rather be this than... than that,” said Andrews bitterly. He tossed his head in the direction of a staff car full of officers that was stalled at the side of the road. They were drinking something out of a thermos bottle that they passed round with the air of Sunday excursionists. They waved, with a conscious relaxation of discipline, at the men as they passed. One, a little lieutenant with a black mustache with pointed ends, kept crying: “They're running like rabbits, fellers; they're running like rabbits.” A wavering half-cheer would come from the column now and then where it was passing the staff car.
The big gun fired again. Chrisfield was near it this time and felt the concussion like a blow in the head.
“Some baby,” said the man behind him.
Someone was singing:
“Good morning, mister Zip Zip Zip,
With your hair cut just as short as,
With your hair cut just as short as,
With your hair cut just as short as mi-ine.”
Everybody took it up. Their steps rang in rhythm in the paved street that zigzagged among the smashed houses of the village. Ambulances passed them, big trucks full of huddled men with grey faces, from which came a smell of sweat and blood and carbolic. Somebody went on: