What Strikes You Most Is The Bored Air
Of The Tommies, The Undivided Interest Of The Engineers In The
Construction
Of a pontoon bridge, the solicitude of the medical staff
over the long lines of wounded, the rage of the
Naked Kaffirs at
their lumbering steers; the fact that every one is intent on
something - anything - but the battle.
They are wearied with battles. The Tommies stretch themselves in the
sun to dry the wet khaki in which they have lain out in the cold
night for weeks, and yawn at battles. Or, if you climb to the hill
where the officers are seated, you will find men steeped even deeper
in boredom. They are burned a dark red; their brown mustaches look
white by contrast, theirs are the same faces you have met with in
Piccadilly, which you see across the tables of the Savoy restaurant,
which gaze depressedly from the windows of White's and the Bachelors'
Club. If they were bored then, they are unbearably bored now. Below
them the men of their regiment lie crouched amid the bowlders, hardly
distinguishable from the brown and yellow rock. They are sleeping,
or dozing, or yawning. A shell passes over them like the shaking of
many telegraph wires, and neither officer nor Tommy raises his head
to watch it strike. They are tired in body and in mind, with cramped
limbs and aching eyes. They have had twelve nights and twelve days
of battle, and it has lost its power to amuse.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 111 of 202
Words from 30351 to 30602
of 55169
