the minute when the officer puts his watch back in his pocket and
says, 'Off you go!'"

"In fact, they're real soldiers."

"We are not soldiers," says big Lamuse, "we're men." Though the
evening has grown darker now, that plain true saying sheds something
like a glimmering light on the men who are waiting here, waiting
since the morning. waiting since months ago.

They are men, good fellows of all kinds, rudely torn away from the
joy of life. Like any other men whom you take in the mass, they are
ignorant and of narrow outlook, full of a sound common sense--which
some-times gets off the rails--disposed to be led and to do as they
are bid, enduring under hardships, long-suffering.

They are simple men further simplified, in whom the merely primitive
instincts have been accentuated by the force of circumstances--the
instinct of self-preservation, the hard-gripped hope of living
through, the joy of food, of drink, and of sleep. And at intervals
they are cries and dark shudders of humanity that issue from the
silence and the shadows of their great human hearts.

When we can no longer see clearly, we hear down there the murmur of
a command, which comes nearer and rings loud--"Second half-section!
Muster!" We fall in; it is the call.

"Gee up!" says the corporal. We are set in motion. In front of the
tool-depot there is a halt and trampling. To each is given a spade
or pickax. An N.C.O. presents the handles in the gloom: "You, a