But I saw to-day that death isn't all. I don't know what else there is, but this is a sort of long night, this war. A few of us are awake. If we are put to sleep—that's all right—I mean knocked out, you know. But so long as we are not, we've got to watch and root for the dawn. God, man, there is much to do. We've got to make our lives count—

There was silence.
“I wonder how they are taking it in America?” Fallows mused.
“Doubtless as an opportunity for world-trade,” said Peter.
“Oh, I hope not!” the exile said passionately. “There must be another America.”

“They call this the great German fighting machine,” Peter whispered to Boylan one night, “but we're inside. We can't call it that. It's the most pitiful and devitalized thing that ever ran up and down the earth. And it doesn't mean anything. It's all waste—like a great body killing itself piece by piece—all waste and death.”

I suppose they forget. Just as I forget between wars what hell is like.... I suppose they do forget, and read a man's stuff by their fires (ordering the kids to be quiet)... thinking that this war-man writing from the field is a great and lucky guy. I suppose they stop and think how things might have been different with them—had they taken to the open when the old call came.... Ordering the kids to be quiet—Good God—