an that in their heads. I've
seen some of 'em, young men, who said, 'To hell with humanitarian
ideas'; what mattered to them was nationality and nothing else, and the
war was a question of fatherlands--let every man make a shine about his
own. They were fighting, those chaps, and they were fighting well."

"They're young, the lads you're talking about; they're young, and we
must excuse 'em."

"You can do a thing well without knowing what you are doing."

"Men are mad, that's true. You'll never say that often enough."

"The Jingoes--they're vermin," growled a shadow.

Several times they repeated, as though feeling their way, "War must be
killed; war itself."

"That's all silly talk. What diff does it make whether you think this
or that? We've got to be winners, that's all."

But the others had begun to cast about. They wanted to know and to see
farther than to-day. They throbbed with the effort to beget in
themselves some light of wisdom and of will. Some sparse convictions
whirled in their minds, and jumbled scraps of creeds issued from their
lips.

"Of course--yes--but we must look at facts--you've got to think about
the object, old chap."

"The object? To be winners in this war," the pillar-man insisted,
"isn't that an object?"

Two there were who replied together, "No!"

* * * * *

At this moment there was a dull noise; cries broke out around us, and
we shuddered. A length of earth had detached itself from the hillock on
which--after a fashion--we were leaning back, and had completely
exhumed in the middle of us a sitting corpse, with its legs out full
length. The collapse burst a pool that had gathered on the top of the
mound, and the water spread like a cascade over the body and laved it
as we looked.

Some one cried, "His face is all black!"

"What is that face?" gasped a voice.

Those who were able drew near in a circle, like frogs. We could not
gaze upon the head that showed in low relief upon the trench-wall that
the landslide had laid bare. "His face? It isn't his face!" In place of
the face we found the hair, and then we saw that the corpse which had
seemed to be sitting was broken, and folded the wrong way. In dreadful
silence we looked on the vertical back of the dislocated dead, upon the
hanging arms, backward curved, and the two outstretched legs that
rested on the sinking soil by the points of the toes. Then the
discussion began again, revived by this fearful