[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.That face, once so cool andcapable, was now sharpened like a hunted beast's.His imagination was preyingon him and I could picture its torture.He, who had been always at the topdirecting the machine, was now only a cog in it.He had never in his life beenanything but powerful; now he was impotent.He was in a hard, unfamiliarworld, in the grip of something which he feared and didn't understand, in thecharge of men who were in no way amenable to his persuasiveness.It was like aproud and bullying manager suddenly forced to labour in a squad of navvies,and worse, for there was the gnawing physical fear of what was coming.He made an appeal to me.'Do the English torture their prisoners?' he asked.'You have beaten me.I ownit, and I plead for mercy.I will go on my knees if you like.I am not afraidof death in my own way.''Few people are afraid of death in their own way.''Why do you degrade me? I am a gentleman.''Not as we define the thing,' I said.His jaw dropped.'What are you going to do with me?' he quavered.'You have been a soldier,' I said.'You are going to see a little fightingfrom the ranks.There will be no brutality, you will be armed if you want todefend yourself, you will have the same chance of survival as the men aroundyou.You may have heard that your countrymen are doing well.It is evenpossible that they may win the battle.What was your forecast to me? Amiens intwo days, Abbeville in three.Well, you are a little behind scheduled time,but still you are prospering.You told me that you were the chief architect ofall this, and you are going to be given the chance of seeing it, perhaps ofsharing in it from the other side.Does it not appeal to your sense ofjustice?' He groaned and turned away.I had no more pity for him than I wouldhave had for a black mamba that had killed my friend and was now caught to acleft tree.Nor, oddly enough, had Wake.If we had shot Ivery outright at StAnton, I am certain that Wake would have called us murderers.Now he was in complete agreement.His passionate hatred of war made himrejoice that a chief contriver of war should be made to share in its terrors.'He tried to talk me over this morning,' he told me.'Claimed he was on myside and said the kind of thing Iused to say last year.It made me rather ashamed of some of my pastperformances to hear that scoundrel imitating them.By the way, Hannay,what are you going to do with me?''You're coming on my staff.You're a stout fellow and I can't do without you.''Remember I won't fight.'Mr.StandfastMr.Standfast162'You won't be asked to.We're trying to stem the tide which wants to roll tothe sea.You know how the Boche behaves in occupied country, and Mary's inAmiens.'At that news he shut his lips.'Still 'he began.still" I said.'I don't ask you to forfeit one of your blessed principles.Youneedn't fire a shot.But I want a man to carry orders for me, for we haven't aline any more, only a lot of blobs like quicksilver.I want a clever man forthe job and a brave one, and I know that you're not afraid.''No,' he said.'I don't think I am much.Well.I'm content!'I started Blenkiron off in a car for Corps Headquarters, and in the afternoontook the road myself.I knew every inch of the country the lift of the hilleast of Amiens, the Roman highway that ran straight as an arrow to St Quentin,the marshy lagoons of the Somme, and that broad strip of land wasted by battlebetweenDompierre and Peronne.I had come to Amiens through it in January, for I hadPage 167 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlbeen up to the line before I left for Paris, and then it had been a peacefulplace, with peasants tilling their fields, and new buildings going up on theold battlefield, and carpenters busy at cottage roofs, and scarcely atransport waggon on the road to remind one of war.Now the main route waschoked like the Albert road when the Somme battle first began troops going upand troops coming down, the latter in the last stage of weariness; a ceaselesstraffic of ambulances one way and ammunition waggons the other; busy staffcars trying to worm a way through the mass; strings of gun horses, oddments ofcavalry, and here and there blue French uniforms.All that I had seen before;but one thing was new to me.Little country carts with sadfaced women andmystified children in them and piles of household plenishing were creepingwestward, or stood waiting at village doors.Beside these tramped old men andboys, mostly in their Sunday best as if they were going to church.I had neverseen the sight before, for I had never seen the British Army falling back.Thedam which held up the waters had broken and the dwellers in the valley weretrying to save their pitiful little treasures.And over everything, horse andman, cart and wheelbarrow, road and tillage, lay the white March dust, the skywas blue as June, small birds were busy in the copses, and in the corners ofabandoned gardens I had a glimpse of the first violets.Presently as we topped a rise we came within full noise of the guns.That,too, was new to me, for it was no ordinary bombardment.There was a specialquality in the sound, something ragged, straggling, intermittent, which I hadnever heard before.It was the sign of open warfare and a moving battle.At Peronne, from which the newly returned inhabitants had a second time fled,the battle seemed to be at the doors.There I had news of my division
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]