Page:The land of many names (1926).pdf/91

 (stopping by the group):

Here’s some tobacco.



God reward you; that’s nice tobacco. But what was I going to say? I was telling you: we dug ourselves in among this sand. They said it was hell there, but that was a place there was a lot of talk about. Nowhere a drop of water, and we were dying of thirst. And the boy, he kept talking about the gold, while we were talking the whole time about water, as if he was the only one who didn’t feel that awful thirst. He kept saying, “Gold, gold! there’s gold yonder on the other side; that’s where we’ve got to go. Then I’ll throw away my rifle and fill my haversack with gold, and after that I’ll have a drink.” That was the fourth day we’d had nothing to drink. So then he makes a dash forward. I got hold of his hand, but he was off like the wind, his eyes starting out of his head. “ Where are you running to?” I said. But all he answered was, “Gold, gold!”



Well, and what then?



I don’t know. There was a big bang and not a button left of the boy. That was right at the beginning of the war.



There was a sergeant serving with us; he’d been a policeman—not a bad fellow, a clean-shaven chap; perhaps you knew him. When we were all whining—whining like children we were, lying in those shocking swamps—he was always saying: “Be sensible! Do