humans demanded with whip and spur--in this line of
passive and dumb spectators, whose fluttering hearts yet would not let
them forget the iron laws of man's control of them--in this rank of
brute-soldiers there had been relentless and hideous carnage. From the
ruck of bleeding and prostrate horses, the men of the infantry could see
one animal raising its stricken body with its fore legs, and turning its
nose with mystic and profound eloquence toward the sky.

Some comrades joked Collins about his thirst. "Well, if yeh want a drink
so bad, why don't yeh go git it!"

"Well, I will in a minnet, if yeh don't shut up!"

A lieutenant of artillery floundered his horse straight down the hill
with as great concern as if it were level ground. As he galloped past
the colonel of the infantry, he threw up his hand in swift salute.
"We've got to get out of that," he roared angrily. He was a
black-bearded officer, and his eyes, which resembled beads, sparkled
like those of an insane man. His jumping horse sped along the column of
infantry.

The fat major, standing carelessly with his sword held horizontally
behind him and with his legs far apart, looked after the receding
horseman and laughed. "He wants to get back with orders pretty quick, or
there'll be no batt'ry left," he observed.

The wise young captain of the second company hazarded to the lieutenant
colonel that the enemy's infantry would probably soon attack the hill,
and the lieutenant colonel snubbed him.

A private in one of the rear companies looked out over the meadow, and
then turned to a companion and said, "Look there, Jim!" It was the
wounded officer from the battery, who some time before had started to
ride across the meadow, supporting his right arm carefully with his left
hand. This man had encountered a shell apparently at a time when no one
perceived him, and he could now be seen lying face downward with a
stirruped foot stretched across the body of his dead horse. A leg of the
charger extended slantingly upward precisely as stiff as a stake. Around
this motionless pair the shells still howled.

There was a quarrel in A Company. Collins was shaking his fist in the
faces of some laughing comrades. "Dern yeh! I ain't afraid t' go. If yeh
say much, I will go!"

"Of course, yeh will! You'll run through that there medder, won't yeh?"

Collins said, in a terrible voice, "You see now!" At this ominous threat
his comrades broke into renewed jeers.

Collins