t's obviously not the brain," said Lilly. "It's deeper than the
brain."

"Deeper," said Herbertson, nodding.

"Funny thing where life is. We had a lieutenant. You know we all buried
our own dead. Well, he looked as if he was asleep. Most of the chaps
looked like that." Herbertson closed his eyes and laid his face aside,
like a man asleep and dead peacefully. "You very rarely see a man dead
with any other look on his face--you know the other look.--" And
he clenched his teeth with a sudden, momentaneous, ghastly
distortion.--"Well, you'd never have known this chap was dead. He had a
wound here--in the back of the head--and a bit of blood on his hand--and
nothing else, nothing. Well, I said we'd give him a decent burial. He
lay there waiting--and they'd wrapped him in a filthy blanket--you know.
Well, I said he should have a proper blanket. He'd been dead lying there
a day and a half you know. So I went and got a blanket, a beautiful
blanket, out of his private kit--his people were Scotch, well-known
family--and I got the pins, you know, ready to pin him up properly, for
the Scots Guards to bury him. And I thought he'd be stiff, you see. But
when I took him by the arms, to lift him on, he sat up. It gave me an
awful shock. 'Why he's alive!' I said. But they said he was dead. I
couldn't believe it. It gave me an awful shock. He was as flexible as
you or me, and looked as if he was asleep. You couldn't believe he was
dead. But we pinned him up in his blanket. It was an awful shock to me.
I couldn't believe a man could be like that after he'd been dead two
days....

"The Germans were wonderful with the machine guns--it's a wicked thing,
a machine gun. But they couldn't touch us with the bayonet. Every time
the men came back they had bayonet practice, and they got awfully good.
You know when you thrust at the Germans--so--if you miss him, you bring
your rifle back sharp, with a round swing, so that the butt comes up and
hits up under the jaw. It's one movement, following on with the stab,
you see, if you miss him. It was too quick for them--But bayonet charge
was worst, you know. Because your man cries out when you catch him, when
you get him, you know. That's what does you....

"No, oh no, this was no war like other wars. All the machinery of it.
No, you couldn't stand it, but for the men. The men are wonderful, you
know. They'll be wiped out.... No, it's your men who keep you going,
if you're an officer.... But there'll