“Dormer, you are a Utilitarian!”
“Have it your own way so long as you get that cable line of yours sited. I’ve got parties coming up to-morrow to dig it in!”
“I shall be ready for them. Think of all that language, and language is only codified thought, buried in the ground, Dormer!”
“I have all the thinking I want over all the men buried in the ground. We’re losing far too many!”
The “victory” of the Somme had been a saddening experience for Dormer.
“That shows how wrong you are. We are mortal. We perish. But our words will live.”
“Rot! Do you mean to say that ‘825 Brigade relieve you to-morrow Nth. Div. Ack, ack, ack’ will live! Why should it? It’ll be superseded in four days. Who wants to perpetuate it?”
“I disagree with you, Dormer, I really do. Here we are at the great crisis of our lives, of the life of European Civilization perhaps. Some trumpery order you or I transmit may mean in reality ‘Civilization is defeated, Barbarism has won!’ or it may mean, I hope, ‘Lift up your eyes unto the hills from whence——’”
“I wish you wouldn’t joke about the Bible!”
“I’m not joking, and you’ll find it out before long. Men will fight so long as they’ve got something to fight about!”