“Sure you feel it. Everybody does. By God, I have periods of sickness when the illustrated London periodicals arrive, and I see those dead men pictured there—such fine, clean fellows—our own kind—half of them just kids!—well, it hurts me to look at them, and, for the sheer pain of it, I’m always inclined to shirk and turn that page quickly. But I say to myself, ‘Jim, they’re dead fighting Christ’s own battle, and the least you can do is to read their names and ages, and look upon their faces.’... And I do it.”
“So do I,” nodded Barres, sombrely gazing at the carpet.
After a silence, Westmore said:
“Well, the Boche has taken his medicine and canned Tirpitz—the wild swine that he is. So I don’t suppose we’ll get mixed up in it.”
“The Hun is a great liar,” remarked Barres. “There’s no telling.”
“Are you going to Plattsburg again this year?” enquired Westmore.
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“In the autumn, perhaps.... Garry, it’s discouraging. Do you realise what a gigantic task we have ahead of us if the Hun ever succeeds in kicking us into 192 this war? And what a gigantic mess we’ve made of two years’ inactivity?”
Barres, pondering, scowled at his own thoughts.
“And now,” continued the other, “the Guard is off to the border, and here we are, stripped clean, with the city lousy with Germans and every species of Hun deviltry hatching out fires and explosions and disloyal propaganda from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf!