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316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1922
“You’re right, corporal,” mumbled one of the soldiers, tackling a huge lump with his pickaxe. “But that’s not army work, corporal… To think that we should have come to be grave-diggers… Well…”
The men fell to work with a will, and the corporal, appeased, answered once more in quite a friendly tone:
“A soldier’s duty in war-time is to do any job that comes to hand. That’s why war is war. Here, or at the front, or in the hospital, it’s all in the war.
In front of him, a few paces away, the sky opened and a shell carried off the roof of the observation post. Apostol felt a sharp stabbing pain in his breast and a blow on the helmet. He seized the theodolite with both hands to prevent himself from falling. Then it seemed to him he was lifted right up into the air and almost immediately he found himself again on the hard ground with a sharp pain in the thigh.
“All that civilization has bestowed on mankind up till to-day is war, which puts millions and millions of people face to face, and which kills thousands and thousands of souls in one second! The benefits of civilization are reflected only in a few favoured ones who suffer from boredom and spleen. For one thousand five hundred million people civilization is a calamity, if it isn’t in truth a refined system of slavery.”