CHAPTER VI

The rain ceased about ten o’clock. The sky grew clear. The battle-front was still silent. The men caught sight of a green slope, afar off on the left, beyond a hollow.

“Look,” said Jennings, “there’s grass there. Astonishing.”

With the exception of Lamont, none of them had seen a blade of grass for five months.

“By Christ!” said Reilly, “the next thing we’ll see is a woman.”

They became quite cheerful at the sight of green grass.

“Listen!” cried McDonald, “that’s a bird singing.”

“Yes!” said Friel. “It’s a lark. My God! that’s open country out there. That’s the end of the desert.”

They all looked at the green grass and listened to the lark singing. The sky was becoming blue and clear. Was the nightmare over? Was peace coming?

That most demoralising thought brought fever to their blood.

Then Reilly brought them back to gloomy reality by saying, “That’s a bad sign. We’re for it, lads. It’s unlucky to hear a bird singing in No Man’s Land.”

Now their faces became drawn and their eyes narrowed as they listened to the eerie singing of the lark in No Man’s Land.

“There are Jerries moving up that slope,” said Gunn. “Where’s our bloody artillery?”

“They’re on the run,” said the Corporal.

“Like hell they are,” said Reilly. “That’s a gun they are dragging. They’re going to pitch their tents there on dry land. I see their idea.”

“What?” said McDonald.

“Why!” said Reilly, “they’ll get us to follow them over this mud. It’s a good place for a graveyard. Cheap. Look how Appleby went down. We’re done for.”

“Ha!” said Gunn.

A sharp boom came from the rear, followed by another and still another. Overhead, three shells passed whining and burst with a loud crash in the green field where the enemy was moving. The earth spouted up in three fountains where they fell.

“See them run!” cried the Corporal. “Ha! that got them. See the stretcher-bearers, coming up. Come on, gunners. Give it to the bastards.”

Their faces shone with excitement as the guns began to fire continuously. In spite of their exhaustion, they felt that this tremendous booming in their rear and the huge projectiles that went whining over their heads towards the enemy were an expression of their own power. Like skinny consumptives who are carried away by the thunder of Nietzsche’s poetry into a belief in the superman, these hapless wretches at that moment almost believed that the thunder was issuing from their own mouths. They were hysterical with hunger, wet, want of sleep, lice, terror of death.

They moved about restlessly. Their eyes assumed a tense, fierce expression. They attained a grotesque dignity. They fingered their weapons. Their monster was belching fire. Soon he would thrust forth his claws, thousands of little men, covered with mud, at the enemy.

Gunn, listening to the artillery, was even more excited than the others. Their sound exalted into ecstasy the blood lust that was growing in him.

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