en
anything like it--just one long bit of jolly fine self-sacrifice;
it's perfectly amazing.

GIRL. [Turning her blue-grey eyes on him] I expect you are not the
last at that. You see in them what you haf in yourself, I think.

YOUNG OFF. Oh, not a bit; you're quite out! I assure you when we
made the attack where I got wounded there wasn't a single man in my
regiment who wasn't an absolute hero. The way they went in--never
thinking of themselves--it was simply ripping.

GIRL. [In a queer voice] It is the same too, perhaps, with--the
enemy.

YOUNG OFF. Oh, yes! I know that.

GIRL. Ah! You are not a mean man. How I hate mean men!

YOUNG OFF. Oh! they're not mean really--they simply don't
understand.

GIRL. Oh! You are a babee--a good babee aren't you?

[The YOUNG OFFICER doesn't like this, and frowns. The GIRL
looks a little scared.]

GIRL. [Clingingly] But I li-ke you for it. It is so good to find a
ni-ice man.

YOUNG OFF. [Abruptly] About being lonely? Haven't you any Russian
friends?

GIRL. [Blankly] Rooshian? No. [Quickly] The town is so beeg.
Were you at the concert before you spoke to me?

YOUNG OFF. Yes.

GIRL. I too. I lofe music.

YOUNG OFF. I suppose all Russians do.

GIRL. [With another quick look tat him] I go there always when I
haf the money.

YOUNG OFF. What! Are you as badly on the rocks as that?

GIRL. Well, I haf just one shilling now!

[She laughs bitterly. The laugh upsets him; he sits on the
window-sill, and leans forward towards her.]

YOUNG OFF. I say, what's your name?

GIRL. May. Well, I call myself that. It is no good asking yours.

YOUNG OFF. [With a laugh] You're a distrustful little soul; aren't
you?

GIRL. I haf reason to be, don't you think?

YOUNG OFF. Yes. I suppose you're bound to think us all brutes.

GIRL. [Sitting on a chair close to the window where the moonlight
falls on one powdered cheek] Well, I haf a lot of reasons to be
afraid all my time. I am dreadfully nervous now; I am not trusding
anybody. I suppose you haf been killing lots of Germans?

YOUNG OFF. We never know, unless it happens to be hand to hand; I
haven't come in for that yet.

GIRL. But you would be very glad if you had killed some.

YOUNG OFF. Oh, glad? I don't think so. We're all in the same boat,
so far as that's concerned. We're not glad to kill each other--not
most of us. We do our job--that's all.