War the Creator

War the Creator is a WWI story by Gelett Burgess. Burgess was an American artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. Excerpt: «The nerve-racking, deafening din went on and on without a respite. Bracques was hit in the head—he was a living, breathing horror, his whole jaw gone—one hand plucking at his coat. He lay grotesquely uncomfortable on his back, rolling this way and rolling that way on his knapsack and his tin gamelle and the dozen other accouterments he couldn't get rid of. A dozen lads he had gone to school with in Toulouse were screaming. One called for his mother again and again, „Maman! Maman! Maman!“ Most of the wounded lay still in their blood, or moaned and writhed in their agony. On Coco's left, he said, was a body without a head. Coco, he confessed, thought more than once of running. What was the use of staying only to be butchered? They could do no good that way. But still the regiment held its place; yes, but the regiment was getting strangely thin. It could not last long.»