'I think we have both always known,3 replied
Christophe. Then he said: 'Listen, Jan, if anything
should happen, promise me that you will take care of
my mother. . . . I feel that I want to give her to
you.'
'Where is the old silver rood?5 Jan asked him, 'Let
me lay my hand on the old silver rood before
answering/ So Christophe unfastened his tunic and
Jan laid his hand on the silver rood: 'In the name of
our crucified Lord, I promise.'
The chaplain passed with bent head, walking
quickly. He looked strange in his soutane and battered
steel helmet. Someone had been hit farther down the
line, they could hear him trying to scream and choking.
'Our chaplain is brave, very brave;5 murmured
Jan. 'They say he fears nothing in war but one thing:
that a man should die without Holy Communion.'
After this they fell silent. A Syrian groaned as he
loosened a putrid sock that was sticking. Toto was
beginning to eat and drink; rough wine, hard-tack,
and meat from a tin — all he had, the field kitchens
having been forbidden. The men shuffled, and sighed,
and swore under their breath, and examined their
equipment for the hundredth time, while the shadows
grew darker along the whole front. Christophe
glanced up at the changing sky — it could not be
long now, the moon was waning.
§2
Darkness; but a darkness that was falling to pieces,
that was splintering into millions of atoms, that was
racked and disintegrated by sound. The earth was
being disintegrated and the darkness was hailing
down on the earth, those millions of atoms that had
been the night hailing down and piercing like sharp,
black darts. . . . The earth rocked and gave, the earth
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