In the still air the scrubby bushes rose stiff and unyielding, antipathetic to the prostrate bodies which were linked to them by the magic of color. The farmhouse on the gray ridge was a gay-capped sepulchre.
Hicks tramped on through the field, dimly sensing the dead, the odors, the scene. He found his rifle where he had thrown it. As he picked it up, the ridge swarmed with small gray figures, ever growing nearer. He turned and walked toward his platoon. The breath from his nostrils felt cool. He raised his chin a little. The action seemed to draw his feet from the earth. No longer did anything matter, neither the bayonets, the bullets, the barbed wire, the dead, nor the living. The soul of Hicks was numb.