Now all was still. Sounds
that came, came from the outside. The place where he stood was still
silent, chill, serene: the white church among the trees beyond seemed
like a thought only.
He moved into a lightning-like mechanical response at the sharp cry from
the officer overhead. Mechanism, the pure mechanical action of obedience
at the guns. Pure mechanical action at the guns. It left the soul
unburdened, brooding in dark nakedness. In the end, the soul is alone,
brooding on the face of the uncreated flux, as a bird on a dark sea.
Nothing could be seen but the road, and a crucifix knocked slanting and
the dark, autumnal fields and woods. There appeared three horsemen on a
little eminence, very small, on the crest of a ploughed field. They were
our own men. Of the enemy, nothing.
The lull continued. Then suddenly came sharp orders, and a new direction
of the guns, and an intense, exciting activity. Yet at the centre the
soul remained dark and aloof, alone.
But even so, it was the soul that heard the new sound: the new, deep
'papp!' of a gun that seemed to touch right upon the soul. He kept up the
rapid activity at the machine-gun, sweating. But in his soul was the echo
of the new, deep sound, deeper than life.
And in confirmation came the awful faint whistling of a shell, advancing
almost suddenly into a piercing, tearing shriek that would tear through
the membrane of life.
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