"Lord Dunsany - Tales of War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

those long days at the end of June; there would be no more of that, he said, with
machines come in and all.

``There was room to tell of all that and he woods too, said the others, so long as they
put it short like.
``And another wanted to tell of the valleys beyond the wood, far afield where the men
went working; the women would remember the hay. The great valleys he’d tell of. It
was they that made Daleswood. The valleys beyond the wood and the twilight on
them in summer. Slopes covered with mint and thyme, all solemn at evening. A hare
on them perhaps, sitting as though they were his, then lolloping slowly away. It didn’t
seem from the way he told of those old valleys that he thought they could ever be to
other folk what they were to the Daleswood men in the days he remembered. He
spoke of them as though there were something in them, besides the mint and the
thyme and the twilight and hares, that would not stay after these men were gone,
though he did not say what it was. Scarcely hinted it even.

``And still the Boche did nothing to the Daleswood men. The bullets had ceased
altogether. That made it much quieter. The shells still snarled over, bursting far, far
away.

``And Bob said tell of Daleswood itself, the old village, with queer chimneys, of red
brick, in the wood. There weren’t houses like that nowadays. They’d be building new
ones and spoiling it, likely, after the war. And that was all he had to say.

``And nobody was for not putting down anything any one said. It was all to go in on
the chalk, as much as would go in the time. For they all sort of understood that the
Daleswood of what they called the good old time was just the memories that those
few men had of the days they had spent there together. And that was the
Daleswood they loved, and wanted folks to remember. They were all agreed as to
that. And then they said how was they to write it down. And when it came to writing
there was so much to be said, not spread over a lot of paper I don’t mean, but going
down so deep like, that it seemed to them how their own talk wouldn’t be good
enough to say it. And they knew no other, and didn’t know what to do. I reckon
they’d been reading magazines and thought that writing had to be like that muck.
Anyway, they didn’t know what to do. I reckon their talk would be good enough for
Daleswood when they loved Daleswood like that. But they didn’t, and they were
puzzled.

``The Boche was miles away behind them now, and his barrage with him. Still in front
he did nothing.

``They talked it all over and over, did the Daleswood men. They tried everything. But
somehow or other they couldn’t get near what they wanted to say about old summer
evenings. Time wore on. The bowlder was smooth and ready, and that whole
generation of Daleswood men could find no words to say what was in their hearts
about Daleswood. There wasn’t time to waste. And the only thing they thought of in
the end was `Please, God, remember Daleswood just like it used to be.’ And Bill and
Harry carved that on the chalk between them.

``What happened to the Daleswood men? Why, nothing. There come one of them