The men smoked and talked. An officer came up from the trenches to
smoke his after-dinner pipe, a bearded individual, who apologised for
his muddy condition. He and the major played a duet. They made a great
fuss about their preparation for it. The stool must be so, the top of
the cracked piano raised. They turned and bowed to us profoundly. Then
sat down and played--CHOP STICKS!
But that was only the beginning. For both of them were accomplished
musicians. The major played divinely. He played a Rhapsodie Hongroise,
the Moonlight Sonata, one of the movements of the Sonata Appassionata.
He played without notes, a bulldog pipe gripped firmly in his teeth,
blue clouds encircling his fair hair. Gone was the reckless soldier
who would have taken his life in his hands for the whim of bringing in
a German sentry. Instead there was a Belgian whose ruined country lay
behind him, whose people lay dead in thousands of hideous graves,
whose heart was torn and aching with the things that it knew and
buried. We sat silent. His pipe died in his mouth; his eyes, fixed on
the shell-riddled wall, grew sombre. When the music ceased his hands
still lay lingeringly on the keys. And, beyond the foot of the street,
the ominous guns of the army that had ruined his country crashed
steadily.
We were rather subdued when the music died away.
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