Thirteen dead men were scattered about in the straw and
dung. Some of them were sitting in absurd postures, as if
they were actors in a pantomime. Others of them, though
burned and shattered, lay peacefully at full length. No
impress of torture could any longer rob them of the rest on
which they had entered so suddenly. I saw that each one of
them had come to the end of his quest and had found the
thing for which he had been searching. The Frenchman had his
equality now. The German had doubtless by this time, found
his God "a mighty fortress." The Belgian had won a
neutrality which nothing would ever invade.
As I looked on that barnyard of dead, I was glad for them
that they were dead, and not as the men I had seen in the
hospital wards--the German with his leg being sawn off, and
the strange bloated face of the Belgian: all those maimed
and broken men condemned to live and carry on the living
flesh the pranks of shell fire. For it was surely better to
be torn to pieces and to die than to be sent forth a jest.