And all the boys seemed to be feeling in
the same way; they hung over him, full of pitying interest, and tried all
they could to help him, and said all sorts of regretful things. They had
forgotten all about the enemy; they thought only of this one forlorn unit
of the foe. Once my imagination persuaded me that the dying man gave me
a reproachful look out of his shadowy eyes, and it seemed to me that I
would rather he had stabbed me than done that. He muttered and mumbled
like a dreamer in his sleep, about his wife and child; and I thought with
a new despair, 'This thing that I have done does not end with him; it
falls upon them too, and they never did me any harm, any more than he.'
In a little while the man was dead. He was killed in war; killed in fair
and legitimate war; killed in battle, as you might say; and yet he was as
sincerely mourned by the opposing force as if he had been their brother.
The boys stood there a half hour sorrowing over him, and recalling the
details of the tragedy, and wondering who he might be, and if he were a
spy, and saying that if it were to do over again they would not hurt him
unless he attacked them first.
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