Fight on!' So I killed all I could."
The priest nodded his head grimly. "You were right, Pierre; your
voice spoke true. It was a dreadful duty that you were doing. The
Gospel tells us if we are smitten on one cheek we must turn the
other. But it does not tell us to turn the cheek of a little child,
of the woman we love, the country we belong to. No! that would
be disgraceful, wicked, un-Christian. It would be to betray the
innocent! Continue, my son."
"Well, then," Pierre went on, his voice deepening and his face
growing more tense, "then we were sent to Verdun. That was the
hottest place of all. It was at the top of the big German drive.
The whole sea rushed and fell on us--big guns, little guns, poison-gas,
hand-grenades, liquid fire, bayonets, knives, and trench-clubs.
Fort after fort went down. The whole pack of hell was loose and
raging. I thought of that crazy, chinless Crown Prince sitting in
his safe little cottage hidden in the woods somewhere--they say he
had flowers and vines planted around it--drinking stolen champagne
and sicking on his dogs of death.
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