Soldiers -- Fiction; War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
Chrisfield and Andrews crawled into their little tent and rolled up
together in their blankets, getting as close to each other as they
could. At first it was very cold and hard, and they squirmed about
restlessly, but gradually the warmth from their bodies filled their thin
blankets and their muscles began to relax. Andrews went to sleep first
and Chrisfield lay listening to his deep breathing. There was a frown
on his face. He was thinking of the man who had walked past the train at
Dijon. The last time he had seen that man Anderson was at training camp.
He had only been a corporal then. He remembered the day the man had
been made corporal. It had not been long before that that Chrisfield had
drawn his knife on him, one night in the barracks. A fellow had caught
his hand just in time. Anderson had looked a bit pale that time and had
walked away. But he'd never spoken a word to Chrisfield since. As he lay
with his eyes closed, pressed close against Andrew's limp sleeping body,
Chrisfield could see the man's face, the eyebrows that joined across the
nose and the jaw, always blackish from the heavy beard, that looked blue
when he had just shaved. At last the tenseness of his mind slackened; he
thought of women for a moment, of a fair-haired girl he'd seen from
the train, and then suddenly crushing sleepiness closed down on him and
everything went softly warmly black, as he drifted off to sleep with no
sense but the coldness of one side and the warmth of his bunkie's body
on the other.
In the middle of the night he awoke and crawled out of the tent. Andrews
followed him. Their teeth chattered a little, and they stretched their
legs stiffly. It was cold, but the mist had vanished. The stars shone
brilliantly. They walked out a little way into the field away from the
bunch of tents to make water. A faint rustling and breathing noise, as
of animals herded together, came from the sleeping regiment. Somewhere
a brook made a shrill gurgling. They strained their ears, but they could
hear no guns. They stood side by side looking up at the multitudes of
stars.
“That's Orion,” said Andrews.
“What?”
“That bunch of stars there is called Orion. D'you see 'em. It's supposed
to look like a man with a bow, but he always looks to me like a fellow
striding across the sky.”
“Some stars tonight, ain't there? Gee, what's that?”
Behind the dark hills a glow rose and fell like the glow in a forge.
“The front must be that way,” said Andrews, shivering. “I guess we'll
know tomorrow.”
“Yes; tomorrow night we'll know more about it,” said Andrews. They stood
silent a moment listening to the noise the brook made.
“God, it's quiet, ain't it? This can't be the front. Smell that?”
“What is it?”
“Smells like an apple tree in bloom somewhere.... Hell, let's git in,
before our blankets git cold.”
Andrews was still staring at the group of stars he had said was Orion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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