II

He was getting used even to his parched throat. That the snowy peaks

were radiant among the sky, that the whity-green glacier-river twisted

through its pale shoals, in the valley below, seemed almost

supernatural. But he was going mad with fever and thirst. He plodded on

uncomplaining. He did not want to speak, not to anybody. There were two

gulls, like flakes of water and snow, over the river. The scent of

green rye soaked in sunshine came like a sickness. And the march

continued, monotonously, almost like a bad sleep.

At the next farm-house, which stood low and broad near the high road,

tubs of water had been put out. The soldiers clustered round to drink.

They took off their helmets, and the steam mounted from their wet hair.

The Captain sat on horseback, watching. He needed to see his orderly.

His helmet threw a dark shadow over his light, fierce eyes, but his

moustache and mouth and chin were distinct in the sunshine. The orderly

must move under the presence of the figure of the horseman. It was not

that he was afraid, or cowed. It was as if he was disembowelled, made

empty, like an empty shell. He felt himself as nothing, a shadow

creeping under the sunshine. And, thirsty as he was, he could scarcely

drink, feeling the Captain near him. He would not take off his helmet

to wipe his wet hair. He wanted to stay in shadow, not to be forced

into consciousness. Starting, he saw the light heel of the officer

prick the belly of the horse; the Captain cantered away, and he himself

could relapse into vacancy.

Nothing, however, could give him back his living place in the hot,

bright morning. He felt like a gap among it all. Whereas the Captain

was prouder, overriding. A hot flash went through the young servant’s

body. The Captain was firmer and prouder with life, he himself was

empty as a shadow. Again the flash went through him, dazing him out.

But his heart ran a little firmer.

The company turned up the hill, to make a loop for the return. Below,

from among the trees, the farm-bell clanged. He saw the labourers,

mowing barefoot at the thick grass, leave off their work and go

downhill, their scythes hanging over their shoulders, like long, bright

claws curving down behind them. They seemed like dream-people, as if

they had no relation to himself. He felt as in a blackish dream: as if

all the other things were there and had form, but he himself was only a

consciousness, a gap that could think and perceive.

The soldiers were tramping silently up the glaring hillside. Gradually

his head began to revolve, slowly, rhythmically. Sometimes it was dark

before his eyes, as if he saw this world through a smoked glass, frail

shadows and unreal. It gave him a pain in his head to walk.

The air was too scented, it gave no breath. All the lush green-stuff

seemed to be issuing its sap, till the air was deathly, sickly with the

smell of greenness. There was the perfume of clover, like pure honey

and bees. Then there grew a faint acrid tang—they were near the

beeches; and then a queer clattering noise, and a suffocating, hideous

smell; they were passing a flock of sheep, a shepherd in a black smock,

holding his crook. Why should the sheep huddle together under this

fierce sun. He felt that the shepherd would not see him, though he

could see the shepherd.

At last there was the halt. They stacked rifles in a conical stack, put

down their kit in a scattered circle around it, and dispersed a little,

sitting on a small knoll high on the hillside. The chatter began. The

soldiers were steaming with heat, but were lively. He sat still, seeing

the blue mountains rising upon the land, twenty kilometres away. There

was a blue fold in the ranges, then out of that, at the foot, the

broad, pale bed of the river, stretches of whity-green water between

pinkish-grey shoals among the dark pine woods. There it was, spread out

a long way off. And it seemed to come downhill, the river. There was a

raft being steered, a mile away. It was a strange country. Nearer, a

red-roofed, broad farm with white base and square dots of windows

crouched beside the wall of beech foliage on the wood’s edge. There

were long strips of rye and clover and pale green corn. And just at his

feet, below the knoll, was a darkish bog, where globe flowers stood

breathless still on their slim stalks. And some of the pale gold

bubbles were burst, and a broken fragment hung in the air. He thought

he was going to sleep.

Suddenly something moved into this coloured mirage before his eyes. The

Captain, a small, light-blue and scarlet figure, was trotting evenly

between the strips of corn, along the level brow of the hill. And the

man making flag-signals was coming on. Proud and sure moved the

horseman’s figure, the quick, bright thing, in which was concentrated

all the light of this morning, which for the rest lay a fragile,

shining shadow. Submissive, apathetic, the young soldier sat and

stared. But as the horse slowed to a walk, coming up the last steep

path, the great flash flared over the body and soul of the orderly. He

sat waiting. The back of his head felt as if it were weighted with a

heavy piece of fire. He did not want to eat. His hands trembled

slightly as he moved them. Meanwhile the officer on horseback was

approaching slowly and proudly. The tension grew in the orderly’s soul.

Then again, seeing the Captain ease himself on the saddle, the flash

blazed through him.

The Captain looked at the patch of light blue and scarlet, and dark

heads, scattered closely on the hillside. It pleased him. The command

pleased him. And he was feeling proud. His orderly was among them in

common subjection. The officer rose a little on his stirrups to look.

The young soldier sat with averted, dumb face. The Captain relaxed on

his seat. His slim-legged, beautiful horse, brown as a beech nut,

walked proudly uphill. The Captain passed into the zone of the

company’s atmosphere: a hot smell of men, of sweat, of leather. He knew

it very well. After a word with the lieutenant, he went a few paces

higher, and sat there, a dominant figure, his sweat-marked horse

swishing its tail, while he looked down on his men, on his orderly, a

nonentity among the crowd.

The young soldier’s heart was like fire in his chest, and he breathed

with difficulty. The officer, looking downhill, saw three of the young

soldiers, two pails of water between them, staggering across a sunny

green field. A table had been set up under a tree, and there the slim

lieutenant stood, importantly busy. Then the Captain summoned himself

to an act of courage. He called his orderly.

The name leapt into the young soldier’s throat as he heard the command,

and he rose blindly stifled. He saluted, standing below the officer. He

did not look up. But there was the flicker in the Captain’s voice.

“Go to the inn and fetch me....” the officer gave his commands.

“Quick!” he added.

At the last word, the heart of the servant leapt with a flash, and he

felt the strength come over his body. But he turned in mechanical

obedience, and set on at a heavy run downhill, looking almost like a

bear, his trousers bagging over his military boots. And the officer

watched this blind, plunging run all the way.

But it was only the outside of the orderly’s body that was obeying so

humbly and mechanically. Inside had gradually accumulated a core into

which all the energy of that young life was compact and concentrated.

He executed his commission, and plodded quickly back uphill. There was

a pain in his head, as he walked, that made him twist his features

unknowingly. But hard there in the centre of his chest was himself,

himself, firm, and not to be plucked to pieces.

The captain had gone up into the wood. The orderly plodded through the

hot, powerfully smelling zone of the company’s atmosphere. He had a

curious mass of energy inside him now. The Captain was less real than

himself. He approached the green entrance to the wood. There, in the

half-shade, he saw the horse standing, the sunshine and the tuckering

shadow of leaves dancing over his brown body. There was a clearing

where timber had lately been felled. Here, in the gold-green shade

beside the brilliant cup of sunshine, stood two figures, blue and pink,

the bits of pink showing out plainly. The Captain was talking to his

lieutenant.

The orderly stood on the edge of the bright clearing, where great

trunks of trees, stripped and glistening, lay stretched like naked,

brown-skinned bodies. Chips of wood littered the trampled floor, like

splashed light, and the bases of the felled trees stood here and there,

with their raw, level tops. Beyond was the brilliant, sunlit green of a

beech.

“Then I will ride forward,” the orderly heard his Captain say. The

lieutenant saluted and strode away. He himself went forward. A hot

flash passed through his belly, as he tramped towards his officer.

The Captain watched the rather heavy figure of the young soldier

stumble forward, and his veins, too, ran hot. This was to be man to man

between them. He yielded before the solid, stumbling figure with bent

head. The orderly stooped and put the food on a level-sawn tree-base.

The Captain watched the glistening, sun-inflamed, naked hands. He

wanted to speak to the young soldier, but could not. The servant

propped a bottle against his thigh, pressed open the cork, and poured

out the beer into the mug. He kept his head bent. The Captain accepted

the mug.

“Hot!” he said, as if amiably.

The flame sprang out of the orderly’s heart, nearly suffocating him.

“Yes, sir,” he replied, between shut teeth.

And he heard the sound of the Captain’s drinking, and he clenched his

fists, such a strong torment came into his wrists. Then came the faint

clang of the closing of the pot-lid. He looked up. The Captain was

watching him. He glanced swiftly away. Then he saw the officer stoop

and take a piece of bread from the tree-base. Again the flash of flame

went through the young soldier, seeing the stiff body stoop beneath

him, and his hands jerked. He looked away. He could feel the officer

was nervous. The bread fell as it was being broken The officer ate the

other piece. The two men stood tense and still, the master laboriously

chewing his bread, the servant staring with averted face, his fist

clenched.

Then the young soldier started. The officer had pressed open the lid of

the mug again. The orderly watched the lid of the mug, and the white

hand that clenched the handle, as if he were fascinated. It was raised.

The youth followed it with his eyes. And then he saw the thin, strong

throat of the elder man moving up and down as he drank, the strong jaw

working. And the instinct which had been jerking at the young man’s

wrists suddenly jerked free. He jumped, feeling as if it were rent in

two by a strong flame.

The spur of the officer caught in a tree-root, he went down backwards

with a crash, the middle of his back thudding sickeningly against a

sharp-edged tree-base, the pot flying away. And in a second the

orderly, with serious, earnest young face, and under-lip between his

teeth, had got his knee in the officer’s chest and was pressing the

chin backward over the farther edge of the tree-stump, pressing, with

all his heart behind in a passion of relief, the tension of his wrists

exquisite with relief. And with the base of his palms he shoved at the

chin, with all his might. And it was pleasant, too, to have that chin,

that hard jaw already slightly rough with beard, in his hands. He did

not relax one hair’s breadth, but, all the force of all his blood

exulting in his thrust, he shoved back the head of the other man, till

there was a little cluck and a crunching sensation. Then he felt as if

his head went to vapour. Heavy convulsions shook the body of the

officer, frightening and horrifying the young soldier. Yet it pleased

him, too, to repress them. It pleased him to keep his hands pressing

back the chin, to feel the chest of the other man yield in expiration

to the weight of his strong, young knees, to feel the hard twitchings

of the prostrate body jerking his own whole frame, which was pressed

down on it.

But it went still. He could look into the nostrils of the other man,

the eyes he could scarcely see. How curiously the mouth was pushed out,

exaggerating the full lips, and the moustache bristling up from them.

Then, with a start, he noticed the nostrils gradually filled with

blood. The red brimmed, hesitated, ran over, and went in a thin trickle

down the face to the eyes.

It shocked and distressed him. Slowly, he got up. The body twitched and

sprawled there, inert. He stood and looked at it in silence. It was a

pity it was broken. It represented more than the thing which had kicked

and bullied him. He was afraid to look at the eyes. They were hideous

now, only the whites showing, and the blood running to them. The face

of the orderly was drawn with horror at the sight. Well, it was so. In

his heart he was satisfied. He had hated the face of the Captain. It

was extinguished now. There was a heavy relief in the orderly’s soul.

That was as it should be. But he could not bear to see the long,

military body lying broken over the tree-base, the fine fingers

crisped. He wanted to hide it away.

Quickly, busily, he gathered it up and pushed it under the felled

tree-trunks, which rested their beautiful, smooth length either end on

logs. The face was horrible with blood. He covered it with the helmet.

Then he pushed the limbs straight and decent, and brushed the dead

leaves off the fine cloth of the uniform. So, it lay quite still in the

shadow under there. A little strip of sunshine ran along the breast,

from a chink between the logs. The orderly sat by it for a few moments.

Here his own life also ended.

Then, through his daze, he heard the lieutenant, in a loud voice,

explaining to the men outside the wood, that they were to suppose the

bridge on the river below was held by the enemy. Now they were to march

to the attack in such and such a manner. The lieutenant had no gift of

expression. The orderly, listening from habit, got muddled. And when

the lieutenant began it all again he ceased to hear. He knew he must

go. He stood up. It surprised him that the leaves were glittering in

the sun, and the chips of wood reflecting white from the ground. For

him a change had come over the world. But for the rest it had not—all

seemed the same. Only he had left it. And he could not go back. It was

his duty to return with the beer-pot and the bottle. He could not. He

had left all that. The lieutenant was still hoarsely explaining. He

must go, or they would, overtake him. And he could not bear contact

with anyone now.

He drew his fingers over his eyes, trying to find out where he was.

Then he turned away. He saw the horse standing in the path. He went up

to it and mounted. It hurt him to sit in the saddle. The pain of

keeping his seat occupied him as they cantered through the wood. He

would not have minded anything, but he could not get away from the

sense of being divided from the others. The path led out of the trees.

On the edge of the wood he pulled up and stood watching. There in the

spacious sunshine of the valley soldiers were moving in a little swarm.

Every now and then, a man harrowing on a strip of fallow shouted to his

oxen, at the turn. The village and the white-towered church was small

in the sunshine. And he no longer belonged to it—he sat there, beyond,

like a man outside in the dark. He had gone out from everyday life into

the unknown, and he could not, he even did not want to go back.

Turning from the sun-blazing valley, he rode deep into the wood.

Tree-trunks, like people standing grey and still, took no notice as he

went. A doe, herself a moving bit of sunshine and shadow, went running

through the flecked shade. There were bright green rents in the

foliage. Then it was all pine wood, dark and cool. And he was sick with

pain, he had an intolerable great pulse in his head, and he was sick.

He had never been ill in his life, he felt lost, quite dazed with all

this.

Trying to get down from the horse, he fell, astonished at the pain and

his lack of balance. The horse shifted uneasily. He jerked its bridle

and sent it cantering jerkily away. It was his last connection with the

rest of things.

But he only wanted to lie down and not be disturbed. Stumbling through

the trees, he came on a quiet place where beeches and pine trees grew

on a slope. Immediately he had lain down and closed his eyes, his

consciousness went racing on without him. A big pulse of sickness beat

in him as if it throbbed through the whole earth. He was burning with

dry heat. But he was too busy, too tearingly active in the incoherent

race of delirium to observe.