Page:Sapper--No man's land.djvu/36

34 to him doubtfully. "And there must be something in it if it's in all the Spanish papers."

"On the contrary," returned the graceless one. "It is precisely that fact that makes me believe there is nothing in it."

The remark seemed conclusive; and yet so detailed was the information all over Gib, so definite the lists of vessels sunk on each side, that even intelligent Scorps—as the inhabitants of the place are known—were impressed. Strangely enough, exactly the same detailed lists, with just sufficient difference to make them credible, were in all the Italian papers at the same time—though this only transpired later.

At the moment nothing much mattered but the time of the next boat going East: it was their own little personal future that counted. A naval battle—yes, perhaps; nineteen ships down—the German fleet as well; fifty or sixty thousand men—gone, finished, wiped out. And yet it was the next boat they wanted to know about.

Callous—I think not; merely a total incapability to realise a thing so stupendous. It has been the same all through the war: the tragedies have been too big for human minds to grasp. It is the little things that tell; the isolated thumb-nail impressions that live in one's mind, and will go with us to the grave. The one huddled form lying motionless in the shell-hole, with its staring, sightless eyes; the one small, but supreme sacrifice: that is the thing which hits—hits harder than the Lusitania, or any other of the gigantic panels of the war. The pin-pricks