Yes, our native land is fair and great, and worthy that a man should shed his blood for it.
CHAPTER VI
LIKE THE PROMISE OF MAY
We have turned off the main road, and have to march over a field of stubble. A battle was fought here yesterday, for the field is sown with dead bodies. They have picked up the wounded. But as yet they have had no time to bury those who died where they fell.
The first dead man we saw struck us dumb. At first we hardly realized what it meant—this lifeless new uniform spread out there—from the way he was lying you could hardly believe he was really dead. It gave you a prickly feeling on the tongue. It seemed as if you were on manoeuvres, and the fellow lying there in a ditch had got a touch of the sun. A rough soldierly jest, a cheery shout was all that was wanted to raise him to his ramshackle legs.
"Hullo, you! Got a head? Keep a stiff neck."
But the words froze in our throat, for an icy breath was wafted to us from the dead man, and a chill hand clutched at our terror-stricken hearts.
So that was Death! We knew all about it now. That is what it looks like, and we turned our heads back and shuddered.
But then there came more and more of them.