fought for a loose woman.

And into this vale of hell he was now to descend! _Live_ down there
five days and five nights, he and his little company of the damned,
spewed down into that place, their living bodies speared on the fishing
hook, bait for the enemy!

All alone, with no one near to hear him, amid the fury of the bursting
shrapnel, which fell up there as thick as rain in a thunderstorm,
Captain Marschner gave himself up to his rage, his impotent rage against
a world that had inflicted such a thing on him. He cursed and roared out
his hatred into the deaf tumult; and then he sprang up when, far below,
almost in the valley already, his men emerged followed by Lieutenant
Weixler, who ran behind them like a butcher's helper driving oxen to the
shambles. The captain saw them hurry, saw the clouds of the explosions
multiply above their heads, and on the slope in front of him saw bluish-
green heaps scattered here and there, like knapsacks dropped by the way,
some motionless, some twitching like great spiders--and he rushed on.

He raced like a madman down the steep slope, scarcely feeling the ground
under his feet, nor hearing the rattle of the exploding shells. He flew
rather than ran, stumbled over charred roots, fell, picked himself up
again and darted onward, looking neither to the right nor to the left,
almost with closed eyes. Now and then, as from a train window, he saw a
pale, troubled face flit by. Once it seemed to him he heard a man
moaning for water. But he wished to hear nothing, to see nothing. He ran
on, blind and deaf, without stopping, driven by the terror of that bad,
reproachful, "Hurts so!"

Only once did he halt, as though he had stepped into a trap and were