But I can't take
advantage of you the way I used, not even if I seem to be wanting
in respect to you and cocked up by winning the Cross.
SIR PEARCE [touched]. Not at all, O'Flaherty. Not at all.
O'FLAHERTY. Sure what's the Cross to me, barring the little
pension it carries? Do you think I don't know that there's
hundreds of men as brave as me that never had the luck to get
anything for their bravery but a curse from the sergeant, and the
blame for the faults of them that ought to have been their
betters? I've learnt more than you'd think, sir; for how would a
gentleman like you know what a poor ignorant conceited creature I
was when I went from here into the wide world as a soldier? What
use is all the lying, and pretending, and humbugging, and letting
on, when the day comes to you that your comrade is killed in the
trench beside you, and you don't as much as look round at him
until you trip over his poor body, and then all you say is to ask
why the hell the stretcher-bearers don't take it out of the way.
Why should I read the papers to be humbugged and lied to by them
that had the cunning to stay at home and send me to fight for
them? Don't talk to me or to any soldier of the war being right.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39