Page:Sapper--No man's land.djvu/19

Rh Almost as beings from another world, they passed through the noisy throng, so utterly inconsequent, so absolutely ignorant and careless. One cannot help wondering now just how that throng has answered the great call; how many lie in nameless graves, with the remnants of Ypres standing sentinel to their last sleep; how many have fought and cursed and killed in the mud-holes of the Somme; how many have chosen the other path, and even though they had no skill and aptitude to recommend them, are earning now their three and four pounds a week making munitions. But they have answered the call, that throng and others like them; they have learned out of the book of life and death; and perhaps the tall man with the bronzed face might find the answer to his question could he see England to-day. Only he lies somewhere between Fletre and Meteren, and beside him are twenty men of his battalion. He took it in the fighting before the first battle of Ypres …

"I call it a bit steep." A man in the Indian Cavalry broke the silence of the group who were leaning over the side watching the coast fade away. "In England two days after three years of it, and now here we are again. But the sun being over the yard-arm—what say you?"

With one last final look at the blue line astern, with one last involuntary thought—"Is it au revoir, or is it good-bye?"—they went below. The sun was indeed over the yard-arm, and the steward was a hospitable lad of cosmopolitan instincts. …