A smile sparkled in his eyes and in the middle of his beard, and his brass "cold meat ticket" jingled on his shaggy wrist.
They took the body away.

The men carried it and a third followed with the cap.

One of us said, "The war's over for him!" And during the dead man's recessional we were mustered, and we continued to draw nearer to the unknown.

But everything seemed to recede as fast as we advanced, even events.
* * * * * * We wandered five days, six days, in the lines, almost without sleeping.
We stood for hours, for half-nights and half-days, waiting for ways to be clear that we could not see.

Unceasingly they made us go back on our tracks and begin over again.