Her little drummer played less and less frequently to her as the months
passed by. It didn't seem to be the war he had looked forward to. The
illustrated papers continued to picture it as a sort of glorified picnic
where smiling young men lolled luxuriously in cosy dug-outs, reading
their favourite paper. By curious coincidence, it generally happened to
be the journal publishing the photograph. Occasionally, it appeared,
they came across the enemy, who then put up both hands and shouted
"Kamerad." But the weary, wounded men she talked to told another story.
She grew impatient of the fighters with their mouths; the savage old
baldheads heroically prepared to sacrifice the last young man; the sleek,
purring women who talked childish nonsense about killing every man, woman
and child in Germany, but quite meant it; the shrieking journalists who
had decided that their place was the home front; the press-spurred mobs,
the spy hunters, chasing terrified old men and sobbing children through
the streets. It was a relief to enter the quiet ward and close the door
behind her.
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