"I'm finished with war for a few weeks at least," I muttered. "I'm pleased. I hope I get to England. Another casualty from Loos. The dead are lying all round here; civilians and soldiers. A dead child lying in a trench near Hulluch. I suppose somebody has buried it. I wonder how it got there.... The line of wounded stretches from Lens to Victoria Station on this side, and from Lens to Berlin on the other side.... How many thousand dead are there in the fields round there?... There will be many more, for the battle of Loos is still proceeding.... Who is going to benefit by the carnage, save the rats which feed now as they have never fed before?... What has brought about this turmoil, this tragedy that cuts the heart of friend and foe alike?... Why have millions of men come here from all corners of Europe to hack and slay one another? What mysterious impulse guided them to this maiming, murdering, gouging, gassing, and filled them with such hatred? Why do we use the years of peace in preparation for war? Why do men well over the military age hate the Germans more than the younger and more sober souls in the trenches? Who has profited by this carnage? Who will profit? Why have some men joined in the war for freedom?"
Suddenly I was overcome with a fit of laughter, and old Mac woke up.
"What the devil are you kicking up such a row for?" he grumbled.
"Do you remember B——, the fellow whose wound you dressed one night a week ago? Bald as a trout, double chin and a shrapnel wound in his leg. He belonged to the —— Regiment."
"I remember him," said Mac.
"I knew him in civil life," I said. "He kept a house of some repute in ——. The sons of the rich came there secretly at night; the poor couldn't afford to. Do you believe that B—— joined the Army in order to redress the wrongs of violated Belgium?"
Mac sat up on the floor, his Balaclava helmet pulled down over his ears, and winked at me.
"Ye're drunk, ye bounder, ye're drunk," he said. "Just like all the rest, mon. We'll have no teetotallers after the war."
He lay down again.