“Well, they have. They want to get home. They’ll fight fast enough about that.”
“Not they. That isn’t the thing to make ’em fight. It’s more likely to make ’em run away. They want an idea.”
“They’ve had enough ideas, I should think. I seem to remember the walls covered with posters, with an idea a-piece.”
“Those ideas were much too superficial and temporary. They want to feel that they are something, or that they do something so important that it doesn’t matter whether they live or die!”
“That’s all wrong. It does matter. This War will be won by the side that has most men and most stuff left.”
“Nonsense. It will be won by the side that has the most faith.”
“Oh, well, you go and have faith in your cable line. I’ve got to have it in these working parties.”
It was now dusk enough for the main body of troops to get on the move. The broad valley below was in ultramarine shadow, the round shoulders of the down touched with lemon-coloured afterglow. Up the drift of chalk dust that represented where the road had once been, an insignificant parish road from one little village to another, but now the main traffic artery of an Army Corps, there came pouring the ceaseless stream, men, men, men, limbers, men, mules, guns, men.
The longer he looked at them, the more certain he became that he was right. Not merely the specialists in mechanics, engineers, ordnance, signals, gunners, but the mere infantry had taken months to train, and could be knocked out in a moment. The problem, of course, was to save them up until the moment at which they could produce the maximum effect.
How docile they were. Platoon for this, platoon for that, section of engineers, then a machine-gun company. Then rations, then limbers, wagons, hand-carts full of every conceivable kind of implement or material. Very soon he was obliged to stand in the middle of the road, with the stream of traffic going up, before him, and the stream of traffic coming back, behind, so that in addition to checking and directing one lot he had to keep an eye on the other to see that they did not begin to smoke until they were well down the side of the hill. Gradually the darkness thickened, and the crowd thinned, and the thunder of the front died down. At length he was left with only a belated hurrying limber or two, or ambulance, sent back for the third or fourth time to clear the accumulation of casualties. At last he felt justified in getting into his bunk and shutting his eyes.