were bitter he crowded out of his way.

The immortals would have been still more lonely, or at least confused,
in the adjoining room occupied by Westerling. There the walls were hung
with the silhouettes of infantrymen, such as you see at manoeuvres, in
different positions of firing, crouching in shallow trenches, standing
in deep trenches, or lying flat on the stomach on level earth. Another
silhouette, that of an infantryman running, was peppered with white
points in arms and legs and parts of the body that were not vital, to
show in how many places a man may be hit with a small-calibre bullet and
still survive.

The immortals had small armies. Even the mustache and imperial had only
three hundred thousand in the great battle of the last war. In this day
of universal European conscription, if Westerling were to win it would
be with five millions--five hundred thousand more than when he faced a
young Brown officer over the wreck of an aeroplane--including the
reserves; each man running, firing, crouching, as was the figure on the
wall, and trying to give more of the white points that peppered the
silhouette than he received.

Now Turcas, the assistant vice-chief of staff, and Bouchard, chief of
the division of intelligence, standing on either side of Westerling's
desk, awaited his decisions on certain matters which they had brought to
his attention. Both were older than Westerling, Turcas by ten and
Bouchard by fifteen years.

Turcas had been strongly urged in inner army circles for the place that
Westerling had won, but his manner and his inability to court influence
were against him A lath of a man and stiff as a lath, pale, with thin,