Germany was of
no importance, and the ruin that Germany was wreaking was of no
importance compared with the histories of the individual souls that
were now in the making. Here were we: Nikitin, Trenchard, Sister
K----, Molozov, myself and the others--engaged upon our great
adventure. Across the surface of the world, at this same instant, out
upon the same hunt, seeking the same answer to their mystery, were
millions of our fellows. Somewhere in the heart of the deep forest the
enemy was hiding. We would defeat him? He would catch us unawares? He
had some plot, some hidden surprise? What should we find when we met
him?... We hated Germany, God knows, with a quiet, unresting,
interminable hatred, but it was not Germany that we were fighting.
And these wounded knew something that we did not. In the first moments
of their agony when we met them their souls had not recovered from the
shock of their encounter. It was, with many of them, more than the
mere physical pain. They were still held by some discovery at whose
very doors they had been.
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