Under Fire: the story of a squad by Henri Barbusse
page 44 of 450 (09%)
page 44 of 450 (09%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
"Perhaps!" cries Cocon, "and perhaps not."
"Anyway," Tirloir goes on, "we've not got a dead set on the men, but on the German officers; non, non, non, they're not men, they're monsters. I tell you, they're really a specially filthy sort o' vermin. One might say that they're the microbes of the war. You ought to see them close to--the infernal great stiff-backs, thin as nails, though they've got calf-heads." "And snouts like snakes." Tirloir continues: "I saw one once, a prisoner, as I came back from liaison. The beastly bastard! A Prussian colonel, that wore a prince's crown, so they told me, and a gold coat-of-arms. He was mad because we took leave to graze against him when they were bringing him back along the communication trench, and he looked down on everybody--like that. I said to myself, 'Wait a bit, old cock, I'll make you rattle directly!' I took my time and squared up behind him, and kicked into his tailpiece with all my might. I tell you, he fell down half-strangled." "Strangled?" "Yes, with rage, when it dawned on him that the rump of an officer and nobleman had been bust in by the hobnailed socks of a poor private! He went off chattering like a woman and wriggling like an epileptic--" "I'm not spiteful myself," says Blaire, "I've got kiddies. And it worries me, too, at home, when I've got to kill a pig that I |
|