All of which was very fine,
no doubt, and very inspiring, too, if one cared deeply for that sort of
thing; but to myself, when the hemisphere had ceased from its
quiverings, I said:
"It isn't true--this isn't war; it's just a costly, useless game of
playing at war. Behold, now, these guns did not fire at anybody visible
or anything tangible. They merely elevated their muzzles into the sky
and fired into the sky to make a great tumult and spoil the good air
with a bad-tasting smoke. No enemy is in sight and no enemy will answer
back; therefore no enemy exists. It is all a useless and a fussy
business, signifying nothing."
Nor did any enemy answer back. The guns having been fired with due pomp
and circumstance, the gunners went back to those pipe-smoking and
postcard-writing pursuits of theirs and everything was as before--
peaceful and entirely serene. Only the telephone man remained in his
bed in the straw with his ear at his telephone. He was still couched
there, spraddling ridiculously on his stomach, with his legs
outstretched in a sawbuck pattern, as we came away.
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