A few minutes later two groaning men dragged down a corpse,
leaned it against the trench wall, and climbed back to their posts
through the narrow shaft. Marschner saw his sergeant get up and move his
lips--then a soldier in the corner arose and took up his rifle and
followed the two others heavily. It was all so comfortless, so
unmercifully businesslike, precisely as when "Next!" breaks into the
monotony of the practising in the yard of the barracks, only with the
difference that a little group at once gathered about the dead man,
drawn by that shy curiosity which irresistibly attracts simple folk to
corpses and funerals. Most of the men expected the same of him--he saw
it in their eyes--that he, too, would go over and pay a last tribute of
respect to the dead. But he did not want to. He was absolutely
determined not to learn the fallen man's name. He was bent upon
practising self-mastery at last and remaining indifferent to all small
happenings. So long as he had not seen the dead man's face nor heard his
name, only a man had fallen in battle, one of the many thousands. If he
kept his distance and did not bend over each individual and did not let
a definite fate come to his notice, it was not so hard to remain
indifferent.
Stubbornly he walked over to the second shaft leading to the top and for
the first time observed that it had grown quite silent up above. There
was no longer any screaming or bursting.
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