Page:Above the battle.djvu/176

Above the Battle soldiers, like beasts in a slaughter-house, die or await death with bitter words—and officers getting drunk on champagne around a 42 mm. mortar, laughing and getting excited till they fall beneath the weight of sleep and fatigue.

From the first scene I take these terrible words of one of those who wait in the trenches under fire of the machine guns, a Dreissigjæhriger (man of thirty).

And the Uhlan, possessed by horror in the midst of the massacre, falls on his knees and prays: 172