came away with the spur, looking
"just like a grey jellyfish." One of the officers, horrified by the
tale, rushed away for the doctor. The latter, on arrival, tried to coax
the sick man to go in:

"You must go to bed now, Lieutenant...."

"Must go, of course," repeated the lieutenant emphatically, heaving a
profound sigh. "We must all go. The man who doesn't go is a coward, and
they have no use for a coward. That's how it is. Don't you understand?
Heroes are in fashion now. The chic Madame Dill wanted a hero to match
her new hat. Ha, ha! That's why poor Dill had to have his brains
spilled. I must go; you must go; we must all go to die.... The women
look on, plucky, because that's the fashion now...."

He gazed round questioningly.

"Isn't it sad?" he asked softly. Then, in a fury once more, he cried:

"Weren't they humbugging us?... Was I an assassin? Was I a swashbuckler?
Didn't I suit her when I sat at the piano playing? We were expected to
be gentle and considerate! Considerate! And all at once, because the
fashion changed, they wanted us to be murderers. Do you understand?
Murderers!"

Speaking now in a lower tone, he went on plaintively:

"My wife was in the fashion too, of course. Not a tear! I kept waiting,
waiting for her to begin to weep, to beg me to get out of the train, not
to go with the others--beg me to be a coward for her sake. But none of
them had the pluck to do that. They all wanted to be in the fashion.
Mine too! Mine too! She waved her handkerchief, just like the others."

His twitching arms writhed upwards, as though he were calling the
heavens to witness.

"You want to know what was the most awful thing? The disillusionment was
the most awful thing--the going off. The war wasn't. The war is what it
has to be. Did it surprise you to find out that war is horrible? The
only surprising thing was the going off. To find out that women are
cruel--that was the surprising thing. That they can smile and throw
roses; that they can give up their husbands, their children, the little
boys they have put to bed a thousand times, tucked up a thousand times,
have fondled, have created from their own flesh and blood. That was the
surprise. That they gave us up--that they sent us--actually sent us. For
every one of them would have been ashamed to stand there without a hero.
That was the great disillusionment.... Do you think we should have gone
if they had not sent us? Do you think so?... No general could