months ago he would not have cared, he would have been reasonable. We try to prevent him. Then, as he goes off grimly, all we can say is: “You’re mad,” and let him go. For these cases of front-line madness become dangerous if one is not able to fling the man to the ground and hold him fast. And Berger is six feet and the most powerful man in the company.
He is absolutely mad for he has to pass through the barrage; but this lightning that lowers somewhere above us all has struck him and made him demented. It affects others so that they begin to rave, to run away—there was one man who even tried to dig himself into the ground with hands, feet, and teeth.
It is true, such things are often simulated, but the pretence itself is a symptom. Berger, who means to finish off the dog, is carried off with a wound in the pelvis, and one of the fellows who carry him gets a bullet in the cheek while doing it.
★★
Müller is dead. Someone shot him point blank with a Verey light in the stomach. He lived for half an hour, quite conscious, and in terrible pain.
Before he died he handed over his pocketbook to
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