This subtle essence, this soul of the life that had been, brushed like
invisible wings the thoughts of the men in the swift columns that came
up from the river.

In the darkness a loud and endless humming arose from the great blue
crowds bivouacked in the streets. From time to time a sharp spatter of
firing from far picket lines entered this bass chorus. The smell from
the smouldering ruins floated on the cold night breeze.

Dan, seated ruefully upon the doorstep of a shot-pierced house, was
proclaiming the campaign badly managed. Orders had been issued
forbidding camp-fires.

Suddenly he ceased his oration, and scanning the group of his comrades,
said: "Where's Billie? Do you know?"

"Gone on picket."

"Get out! Has he?" said Dan. "No business to go on picket. Why don't
some of them other corporals take their turn?"

A bearded private was smoking his pipe of confiscated tobacco, seated
comfortably upon a horse-hair trunk which he had dragged from the house.
He observed: "Was his turn."

"No such thing," cried Dan. He and the man on the horse-hair trunk held
discussion in which Dan stoutly maintained that if his brother had been
sent on picket it was an injustice. He ceased his argument when another
soldier, upon whose arms could faintly be seen the two stripes of a
corporal, entered the circle. "Humph," said Dan, "where you been?"