'Oh yes, I do. I want to be a soldier, I want to serve my time.'
'Why?'I said.
'For the exercise, the life, the drilling. One becomes strong.'
'Do all the Swiss want to serve their time in the army?' I asked.
'Yes--they all want to. It is good for every man, and it keeps us all
together. Besides, it is only for a year. For a year it is very good.
The Germans have three years--that is too long, that is bad.'
I told him how the soldiers in Bavaria hated the military service.
'Yes,' he said, 'that is true of Germans. The system is different. Ours
is much better; in Switzerland a man enjoys his time as a soldier. I
want to go.'
So we watched the black dots of soldiers crawling over the high snow,
listened to the unnatural dry rattle of guns, up there.
Then we were aware of somebody whistling, of soldiers yelling down the
road. We were to come on, along the level, over the bridge. So we
marched quickly forward, away from the slopes, towards the hotel, once a
monastery, that stood in the distance. The light was blue and clear on
the reedy lakes of this upper place; it was a strange desolation of
water and bog and rocks and road, hedged by the snowy slopes round the
rim, under the very sky.
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