“Yes, Roop, living through war is living deep.  It’s crowded, glorious living.  If I’d never had a shell rush at me I’d never have known the swift thrill of approaching death—­which is a wonderful sensation not to be missed.  If I’d never known the shock of seeing sudden death at my side, I’d have missed a terribly wonderful thing.  They say music’s the most evocative art in the world, but, sacre nom de dieu, they hadn’t counted the orchestra of a bombardment.  That’s music at ten thousand pounds a minute.  And if I’d not heard that, I’d never have known what it is to have my soul drawn out of me by the maddening excitement of an intensive bombardment.  And—­and, que voulez-vous, I have killed!”

“Hm!” muttered I. He was too clever for me, but I loved him in his scintillating moments.

“Tiens, if I’m knocked out, it’s at least the most wonderful death.  It’s the deepest death.”

I laughed deprecatingly.

“Oh, I’m resigned to the idea,” he pursued.  “It’s more probable than improbable.  Sooner or later. Tant va la cruche a l’eau qu’ a la fin elle se casse.”

“Tant—­’aunt,’” thought I. “Va—­’goes.’ La cruche—­’the crust.’ Qu’ a la fin elle se casse.” And I said aloud:  “I’ve got it!  ’Aunt goes for the crust at the water, into which, in fine, she casts herself.’”

“No,” corrected Doe, looking away from me wistfully and self-consciously. “’The pitcher goes so often to the well that at last it is broken.’”

Sec.2

About this time the great blizzard broke over Gallipoli.  On the last Sunday in November I awoke, feeling like iced chicken, to learn that the blizzard had begun.  It was still dark, and the snow was being driven along by the wind, so that it flew nearly parallel with the ground, and clothed with mantles of white all the scrub that opposed its onrush.  This morning only did the wild Peninsula look beautiful.  But its whiteness was that of a whited sepulchre.  Never before had it been so mercilessly cruel.  For now was opening the notorious blizzard that should strike down hundreds with frost-bite, and drown in their trenches Turks and Britons alike.

It was freezing—­freezing.  The water in our canvas buckets froze into solid cakes of ice, which we hewed out with pickaxes and kicked about like footballs.  And all the guns stopped speaking.  No more was heard the whip-crack of a rifle, nor the rapid, crisp, unintelligent report of a machine-gun.  Fingers of friend and foe were too numbed to fire.  An Arctic silence settled upon Gallipoli.