" His eyes glanced furtively about him. "God!" he muttered,
"if I could only get out of this! 'Tisn't fair, I tell ye, it isn't
fair to ask a man that's been through what I have to take it on again,
knowing that if I do come through, 'twill be the same thing to go
through over and over until they get me; or until my own sergeant
shoots me for refusing to face it."
Everton had listened in amazed silence--an understanding utterly beyond
him. He knew the name that Halliday bore in the regiment, knew that he
was seeing and hearing more than Halliday perhaps had ever shown or
told to anyone. Shamefacedly and self-consciously, he tried to say
something to console and hearten the other man, but Halliday
interrupted him roughly.
"That's it!" he said bitterly. "Go on! Pat me on the back and tell me
to be a good boy and not to be frightened. I'm coming to it at last:
old Bob Halliday that's been through it from the beginning, one o' the
Old Contemptibles, come down to be mothered and hushaby-baby'd by a
blanky recruit, with the first polish hardly off his new buttons."
He broke off and into bitter cursing, reviling the Germans, the war,
himself and Everton, his sergeant and platoon commander, the O.C., and
at last the regiment itself. But at that the torrent of his oaths broke
off, and he sat silent and shaking for a minute.
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