THEORIES OF HEROISM
“It’s ten years since then,” the Captain resumed, after long urging. “Our battalion was in Hercegovina. The devil was to blame for that campaign. You have no doubt read in the papers enough about all the trials, misfortunes and sufferings endured. Bah! that’s all only a shadow of the horrible reality. That was not war—it was a chase after a rabble of wild men in which the necks of the pursuers were in danger every second, and if I were to tell all that we suffered you would say, ‘It isn’t possible for a man to live through all that.’ And yet a man had to live through it. Habit— A man gets used to everything in this world.
“But to get to what I really want to tell I will leave out the description of all the skirmishes and battles which we engaged in that fall and winter. I. will pass over at once to Gacko.
“We struck Gacko in March. There our company remained in garrison. At that time I was a First Lieutenant.
"Gacko is an abominable nest. A dirty, frowning village of Christians and Turks who would gladly have killed us in perfect unanimity of mind. Whether a
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