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Updated: June 1, 2025
If there were to be a special dispensation providing shell craters and the reverse walls of redoubts for him, he might retain his reputation for heroism. The sand still working its way downward between Pilzer's bare skin and his undershirt irritated him to unusual restlessness of ambition for glory and bronze crosses. He was the strong man of his company, now that Eugene Aronson was dead.
They ate a breakfast of biscuits, washed down by water from their canteens. Trickles of sand from bullet holes sprinkled their shoulders and they had enough resiliency of spirit to grin when a stream of sand from a bag torn by a shell burst ran down the back of Pilzer's neck. It was rather amusing to hear Jake growling as he twisted in his blouse.
"And we'll fix bayonets when we start and they will run at the sight of our steel!" said Eugene Aronson. He and Hugo alone, not excepting Pilzer, the butcher's son, spoke in their natural voices. The others were trying to make their voices sound natural, while Pilzer's voice had developed a certain ferocity, and the liver patch on his cheek twitched more frequently. "Why, Company B is in front!
The scant, reddish product of Pilzer's cheeks, leaving bare the liver patch, only accentuated its repulsiveness and a savagery in his voice and look which was no longer latent under the conventional discipline of every-day existence. The company had not been in the first Engadir assault, but, being near the Engadir position, had suffered heavily in support.
After the men were gone she regretted that she had not gone to Hugo and expressed her gratitude. She vaguely wondered if she should see him again and hoped that she might. The two faces, Hugo's and Pilzer's, in the instant of Hugo's protest and Pilzer's contempt, were as clear as in life before her eyes. Then a staff-officer appeared in the doorway. When he saw a woman enter the room he frowned.
Hugo stood, half ashamed, half frightened, yet ready for another encounter. Fracasse, entering at this moment, was too intent on his mission to consider the rights of a personal difference between two of his company, though he heard and noted Pilzer's growling complaint that he had been struck an unfair blow. "There's work to do! Out of here, quick!
"The !" exclaimed Pilzer, referring to Westerling. He who had set out to be an officers' favorite had become bitter against all officers, high and low. Peterkin was speechlessly aghast. The others said nothing. They were used to Pilzer's oaths and obscenity, with a growing inclination to profanity on their own part. Besides, they rather agreed with his view of the chief of staff.
The savagery of Pilzer's bitterness at seeing another get the bronze cross before he received one turned not on little Peterkin, the valet's son, but on Hugo. As he and Hugo moved, elbow to elbow, picking their way forward from the knoll, he eased his mind with rough sarcasm at Hugo's expense. He christened Hugo "White Liver."
Stained with blood and dust, his teeth showing in a grimace of mocking hate of all humankind, Pilzer's savagery ran free of the restraint of discipline and civilized convention. Striking right and left, he forced his way out of the region of shell fire and still kept on.
Pilzer growled to Hugo. "That would be better than murdering my fellowman to get his property," Hugo answered, so soberly that it did not seem to his comrades that he was joking this time. Pilzer's snarling exclamation of "White feather!" came in the midst of a chorus of indignation.
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