weeks longer and they'll be at the end of their human material."

Captain Marschner had not wanted to listen. He stood bending over a map,
but at the phrase, "human material," he started violently. It sounded
like a taunt directed at his own thoughts, as if the two men had seen
into him and had agreed with each other to give him a good lesson and
show him how alone he was.

"Human material!"

In a trench, filled with the stench of dead bodies, shaken by the impact
of the shells, stood two men, each himself a stake in the game, and
while the dice were still being tossed for their very bones, they talked
of--human material! They uttered those ruthless, shameful words without
a shadow of indignation, as though it were natural for their living
bodies to be no more than a gambler's chips in the hands of men who
arrogated to themselves the right to play the game of gods. Without
hesitating they laid their one, irrevocable life at the feet of a power
that could not prove whether it had known how to place the stakes
rightly except by their dead bodies. And the men who were speaking that
way were officers! So where was there a gleam of hope?

Out there, among the simple men, perhaps, the plain cannon fodder? They
were now crouching resignedly in their places, thinking of home and each
of them still feeling himself a man. He was drawn to his men, to their
dull, silent sadness, to their true greatness, which without pathos and
without solemnity, in everyday clothes, as it were, patiently awaited
the hero's death.

Outside the dugout stood the remnants of the relieved company ready for