The spectral chain-rattling and moans gave me the chills.

[T]he ebbed man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth love, Comes deared by being lacked. This common body, Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream, Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide, To rot itself with motion.

The delight the small crowd of civilians derives from the stunned but affirmative responses made by the soldiers is matched in the following scene by that of a café-goer who, spying the soldiers ordering drinks, exclaims, “Real live poilus!

This is the common story of superstition, from the totemism of savage tribes and the image-worship of semi-civilized peoples on to the heathenism of the Mass.