"What's that? What are you talking about?"

"I'm fed up--that's what I am! The people back there, I'm sick of
them--they make me spew, and you can tell 'em so!"

"What have they done to you?"

"A lot of sods, they are!" says Volpatte.

There he was, with his head as of yore, his ears "stuck on again"
and his Mongolian cheekbones--stubbornly set in the middle of the
puzzled circle that besieged him; amid we felt that the mouth fast
closed on ominous silence meant high pressure of seething
exasperation in the depth of him.

Some words overflowed from him at last. He turned round--facing
towards the rear and the bases--and shook his fist at infinite
space. "There are too many of them," he said between his teeth,
"there are too many!" He seemed to be threatening and repelling a
rising sea of phantoms.

A little later, we questioned him again, knowing well that his anger
could not thus be retained within, and that the savage silence would
explode at the first chance.

It was in a deep communication trench, away back, where we had come
together for a meal after a morning spent in digging. Torrential
rain was falling. We were muddled and drenched and hustled by the
flood, and we ate standing in single file, without shelter, under
the dissolving sky. Only by feats of skill could we protect the