Chapter III: And then, in the summer, came the war (2)

His eyes sought the prisoner--the man who also knew--where he sat hunched heavily forward in his chair, his arms upon the table. For an instant, pity, like some racking physical pain, shot through Robbins. To be caught in such a web! To be caught through no fault of his own! It was the first time the purely personal side had broken its way past his own selfish concern. It stifled him and, forcing his eyes from the man’s brooding face, he got up and stumbled out of the room.

But he could not stay out. An indefinite dread dragged him back presently. An indefinite dread held him bound to his place during the examination of the witnesses who followed, during the days of argument, and the judge’s inconclusive charge. He lay awake on the night following the jury’s retirement, picturing over and over in his own mind the scene of their return--just what degree of astonishment his face should show in listening to their verdict, with just what proud reticence and conscious wrong he should make his way out from the crowd. He had never said that Whiting was guilty--he reminded himself of that. All he had ever said was that on one certain day, in one certain place-- He rolled over on his face and, hands across his eyes, tried vainly to sleep.

Half of Sutro was loafing about the court-house lawn next morning, pushing its way into the corridors at every rumor, drifting back to the freer outer air. When at last the rumor proved a true one, Robbins found himself far in the back of the room, the wall behind him, on three sides a packed, jostling crowd. There was a blur of unintentional noise in the place--heavy breathing, the creaking of a door. Through the noise pierced at intervals the accustomed voice of the judge, and set between the intervals the mumble of the foreman’s reply.

'--Agreed, all of you?'

'Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?'

The mumble dropped lower still. A stir swept over the front of the room, a wave of voiceless interest passing from front to back.

'What--what--' Robbins stammered, straining higher on tiptoe.

'Guilty. Manslaughter,' said the man beside him. He brought his hand down heavily on the boy’s shoulder. 'Suits you all right. Everybody knew--'

The gavel sounded and he broke off, bending forward to listen.

But Robbins did not listen. It was as though the foundations of his world crumbled round him. That truth should fail, that innocent men should suffer-- He fumbled at the sleeve of the man on the other side.

'I--didn’t hear. They said--'

'Sh-h!' the man warned him, and then, behind his sheltering hand, 'Guilty.'

The judge’s voice dropped, and the speaker began moving with others toward the door. Robbins moved, too--as one dazed, uncertain what he did. Some one stopped him in the outer passage. He was conscious of congratulatory sentences. He heard his own voice speaking words which, seemingly, were not without meaning. And all the while his mind waited, awed, for the impending catastrophe.

Mercifully, the house was empty when he reached home. He tiptoed into his own room, and there, the door closed behind him, stood for a moment, listening. Then, with an exclamation, he dropped to his knees beside the bed and buried his face against it.

For an hour he knelt there, bodily quiet, his mind beating, circling, thrusting desperately against its surrounding cage of falsehood. At first it was all fear--how the exposure would come, how best he might sustain himself against it. Then, imperceptibly, a deeper terror crept into his thinking. Suppose it should not come? Suppose-- But that was unthinkable. For a lie to blast a man’s whole life, for a lie to brand him. Stealthily, as if his very stirring might incense the devil-god of such a world, he slid down, sitting beside the bed, his distended, horror-fascinated eyes hard on the wall. In these minutes his young faith in God and justice fought to the death with the injustice before him--fought and won.

'He’ll be sentenced Friday,' he found himself thinking, drawing on some half-heard scrap of conversation. 'That’s four days. There’s time enough--'

He dragged himself up and lay down at full length. Something hot smarted upon his face; he put up his hand to find his cheeks wet with tears. They flowed quietly for a long time--soothingly. He fell asleep at last, his lashes still heavy with them.

He was very early at the court-house Friday morning. Cartwright, coming in at nine to his office, crossed the corridor to speak to him--cheerily.

'Well, we got our man, Robbins. You made a good witness--I meant to tell you so before; no confusing you. Look here, my boy, you’re not fretting over this? If it hadn’t been you, it would have been some one else. There’s no covering a crime like that.'

'Not--ever?' said Robbins thickly.

His secret was at his tongue’s end. A glance of interrogation would have brought it spilling out. But there was no interrogation in his companion’s eyes--only an abstracted kindness. He looked away from the lad toward the stragglers along the corridor.

'You came up to hear the sentence? Come in through my office and we’ll find you a seat. The place will be packed.'

'There’s nothing new?' Robbins asked unwillingly. 'No--new evidence?'

'Why, no! The case will be closed in another half-hour. And then I hope it will be a long time before you have any thing to do with a criminal charge again. Now if you want to come in--'

Robbins followed, silent. It did not trouble him to find himself placed conspicuously in the front row. His whole attention was set upon holding fast to the one strand of hope extended to him. In half an hour it would be over. In half an hour the hideous thing would be folded into the past. But it would _not!_ The case against Whiting would be ended, the arraignment of God would be but just begun! To go on living in a world so guardianed--

The judge entered and took his place; the lawyers on either side filed in to their stations about the long table; the prisoner was brought in, in the custody of a deputy sheriff. There was a little bustle of curiosity to herald his coming. Then the packed room settled to attention.

Robbins leaned forward in his seat. He heard vaguely the opening interchanges of speech. He saw the prisoner rise. The man was clay-colored; his teeth scraped back and forth continually on his dry lower lip. There was no resource in him, no help. And suddenly the watcher knew that help was nowhere. The voice of the judge reached him, low-pitched and solemn, as befitted the occasion.

'--Having been found guilty--decree that you be confined--'

'_No!_' said Robbins suddenly almost in a scream.

All at once the thing was clear to him. It was not Whiting who was being sentenced: it was God who was on trial, it was truth, good faith, the right to hope.

The impulse of his cry had wrenched him from his chair. He stood flung forward against the rail.

'You can’t! I never saw him! They were tormenting me and I said I did. He wasn’t there--'

Behind him the court-room rang with excitement. He was aware of startled exclamations. He was aware of Cartwright, tragic-eyed, beside him, half-sheltering him, calling to him.

'Robbins! What’s wrong? He’s not speaking under oath. He’s been brooding--'

'It’s _so!_' said the boy.

For a moment he held himself erect among them, high-headed, joyous, splendid with the exaltation of the martyr. Then, suddenly, his eyes met the eyes of the prisoner. He dropped back into his seat, his shaking hands before his face.

It had lasted a second, less than a second, that frank, involuntary revelation; but in that second, his guard beaten down by sheer amazement, the prisoner’s guilt stood plain in his face. In that second, reading the craven record of it, Robbins saw the glory of martyrdom snatched from him forever--knew himself, now and now only, irrevocably perjured.

WHAT MR. GREY SAID

BY MARGARET PRESCOTT MONTAGUE

HE was the smallest blind child at Lomax, the State school for deaf and blind children. Even Jimmie Little, who looked like a small gray mouse, and who had always been regarded by the teachers as not much bigger than a minute, appeared large beside Stanislaus. He was so small, in fact, that Mr. Lincoln, the Superintendent, had declined at first to admit him.

'We don’t take children under six,' he had said to Stanislaus’s father when the latter had brought him to Lomax, 'and your little boy doesn’t look five yet.'

'He’ll be five the twenty-second of March,' the father said.

'I’ll be five ve twenty-second of March,' Stanislaus echoed.

He was sitting holding his cap politely between his knees, swinging his fat legs with a gay serenity, while his blind eyes stared away into the dark. He had not been paying much attention to the conversation, being occupied with the working out of a little silent bit of rhythm by an elaborate system of leg-swings: twice out with the right foot; twice with the left; then twice together. He had found that swinging his legs helped to pass the time when grown-ups were talking. The mention of his birthday, however, brought him at once to the surface. That was because Mr. Grey had told him of a wonderful thing which would happen the day he was five. Thereafter his legs swung to the accompaniment of a happy unheard chant:--

'I’ll be five years old' (right leg out),
'I’ll be five years old' (left leg out),
'I’ll be five years old on my _birf_-day!'

(Both legs in ecstatic conjunction.)

Stanislaus’s father, a sad-eyed man, who, though he spoke with no accent, was evidently of emigrant extraction, looked troubled.

'My wife’s dead,' he said, 'an’ I’m workin' in the coalmines, an’ you know that ain’t no place for a little blind child. Every one told me sure you’d take him here.'

Mr. Lincoln hesitated. 'Well,' he said at length, 'I’ll send for Miss Lyman,--she’s the matron for the blind boys,--and if she consents to take him, I’ll make no objection.'

Miss Lyman appeared presently, and Mr. Lincoln explained the situation.

'But he is such a little chap,' he concluded, 'it seems hardly possible for us to take him.'

Here, however, Stanislaus gave over his leg-swinging and took it upon himself to remonstrate.

'I _ain’t_ little,' he said firmly. Slipping off his chair, he drew himself up very straight, and began patting himself all over. 'Feel me,' he urged, 'dest feel me, I’m weally big. Feel my arms,' he held these chubby members out to Miss Lyman. 'An’ my _legs_,--' he patted them,--'why ve’re _aw_-ful big!' His serious little mouth rounded itself to amazement at the bigness of his legs.

It was beyond human nature, or at least beyond Miss Lyman’s nature, to resist the appeal of his eager voice and patting baby hands. Obediently she ran an inquiring touch over his soft body, which was still plump babyhood, not having as yet thinned to boyhood.

'Why,' she said, turning gravely to Mr. Lincoln, 'he does _look_ rather small, but when you _feel_ him, you find he is really quite big.'

'Does he feel big enough for us to take?' Mr. Lincoln demanded.

'Oh, I think so!' she answered quickly, one arm slipping about the little boy’s shoulders.

'An’ I’ll be five ve twenty-second of March,' Stanislaus threw in to overbalance the argument in his favor.

He snuggled himself confidingly against Miss Lyman, and fell to playing with the many jingling attachments of her chatelaine.

'I heard vese tinkly fings when you was comin’ ’w-a-y a-w-a-y outside, 'fore you o-pened ve door,' he murmured softly.

'His mother’s dead,' the man explained.

'Little sister’s dead, too,' Stanislaus supplemented him. 'S’e token a awful bad cold so s’e couldn’t b’eave. I take awful bad colds, but I don’t die, do I?' he demanded.

'Yes,' said the man, 'my baby’s dead, too. I had a woman lookin' after both kids, but she let the baby git the pneumonia.'

'I fink I like you better van vat other lady,' Stanislaus confided to Miss Lyman.

'Of course we can take him,' Miss Lyman said hastily to Mr. Lincoln.

And thus it was that Stanislaus came to Lomax.

As has been said, he was the youngest child at school. This in itself was sufficient to set him apart from the thirty or so other blind boys; but there were other things that served to distinguish him as well. His thoughts, for instance, were so different--so unexpected and whimsical; so entirely off the beaten track.

Witness Mr. Grey, for instance. At his best Mr. Grey was a delightful person; but as he was of a retiring disposition, he never flowered into being, save in a sympathetic atmosphere. Miss Julia, for example, never met Mr. Grey. She was one of the older teachers, whose boast it was that she never stood for any foolishness. In her not doing so, however, she was apt to walk with a heavy foot over other folks' most cherished feelings. For which reason, sensitive people were inclined in her presence to retreat within themselves, sailing, as it were, with their lights blanketed. This was the reason, no doubt, why she and Mr. Grey never met.

Indeed, Mr. Grey was of such an extremely shy nature that he had to be observed with the greatest delicacy. Looked at too closely, he was apt to go out like a blown candle. He lived apparently in an empty closet in the blind boys' clothes room. It is probable that he had taken up his abode there for the sake of being near Stanislaus, for as the latter was too small to be in school all the morning, he spent the rest of his time with Miss Lyman in the clothes room, where she sat and sewed on buttons, mended rips, and put on patches, in a desperate endeavor to keep her army of blind boys mended up. When the other children were about, as they usually were on Saturdays, Mr. Grey kept discreetly to himself, and his presence in the closet would not have been suspected. On the long school mornings, however, when Miss Lyman sat quietly sewing, with Stanislaus playing about, no one could be more unbending than Mr. Grey. Stanislaus would go over to the closet and open it a crack, and then he and Mr. Grey would fall into pleasant conversation. Miss Lyman, of course, could hear only Stanislaus’s side of it, but he constantly repeated his friend’s remarks for her benefit.

From hints which Stanislaus let fall, Miss Lyman gathered that there had once been a real Mr. Grey in the past, from which beginning, the interesting personality of the closet had developed.

Mr. Grey’s comments upon things and people, as repeated by Stanislaus, showed a unique turn of mind. He seemed to have a poor opinion of mankind in general, coupled with an excellent one of himself in particular; for, retiring as he was before strangers, in the presence of friends he blossomed into an incorrigible braggart. If any one failed to do anything, Mr. Grey could always have done it, and never hesitated to say so. There was, for instance, the time when Mr. Beverly, one of the supervisors, was thrown from his horse and rather severely bruised. When informed of the incident by Stanislaus, who always gave his friend the news of the day, Mr. Grey was very scornful.

'Gwey says,' Stanislaus, over by the half-open closet door, turned to announce to Miss Lyman, ''at _he_ never had no horse to frow _him_ yet--an’ he’s wid all kinds of horses. Horses wif four legs, an’ horses wif five legs,--' Stanislaus had been learning to count lately,--'an’ horses wif _six_ legs.'

Again, when Miss Lyman sighed over a particularly disreputable pair of Edward Stone’s trousers, remarking that she really did not think she could patch those, she was met by the assertion, 'Gwey says _he_ could patch 'em. He says he ain’t erfwaid to patch nobody’s pants. He could patch Eddy Stone’s, a-a-n' he could patch Jimmie Nickle’s, a-a-a-n' Sam Black’s, an’--an’'--this last all in a hurry, and as a supreme evidence of proficiency in the art of patching--'he dest b’ieves he could patch Mr. _Lincoln’s_ pants!'

But this was more than Miss Lyman could stand. 'No, he couldn’t either, for Mrs. Lincoln wouldn’t let him,' she declared, stung to retort by such unbridled claims on the part of Mr. Grey.

It is sad to relate also that Mr. Grey was a skeptic as well as a braggart, and had had, apparently, a doubtful past. This was revealed the morning after the Sunday on which Stanislaus had first encountered the Flood, the Ark, and Noah. After giving Mr. Grey on Monday morning a graphic account of the affair,--'An’ Noah him went into ve ark, an’ token all ve animals wif him, an’ ven all ve wicked people was dwown-ed,'--Stanislaus appeared to listen a moment, after which he turned to Miss Lyman.

'Gwey says,' he reported, ''at he doesn’t b’ieve all ve wicked people was dwown-ed, 'cause he was a-livin' ven, an’ he was a very wicked man, an’ he didn’t go into ve Ark, an’ _he_ wasn’t dwown-ed.'

Miss Lyman might have forgiven Mr. Grey’s skepticism, but he showed a tendency to incite Stanislaus to a recklessness which could not be overlooked.

None of the children were allowed to leave the school grounds without permission, but time and again Stanislaus slipped out of the gate, and was caught marching straight down the middle of the road leading to the village. This was a particularly alarming proceeding, because at this point in the road automobiles were apt to put on their last crazy burst of speed, before having to slow down to the sober ten miles an hour of the village limits. Indeed, one day, he was returned to the school by a white and irate automobilist.

'What do you suppose this little scoundrel did?' the man stormed. 'Why, he ran out from the side of the road and barked at my car!'

'I was dest pertendin' I was a little puppy dog,' Stanislaus murmured softly.

'Pretending you were a _puppy_ dog!' roared the man. 'Well, if I hadn’t ditched my machine--! A _puppy dog_, indeed!'

Stanislaus was turned over to Miss Lyman for very severe chastisement. He shed bitter tears, and in the midst of them his instigator’s name came out.

'G-gwey said he al’us barked at aut’mobiles--dest barked an’ barked at 'em--dest whenever he got weady,' he sobbed.

'If you ever do such a dreadful thing again, I shall give you the very worst whipping you ever had,' Miss Lyman scolded. 'Little blind boys have got to learn to be careful where they walk.'

To which Stanislaus made the astonishing reply:--

'Gwey says he dest walked anywhere he got weady when he was little--'fore he got _his_ eyes open.'

That was the first hint that Miss Lyman got of it. Afterwards she and Miss Cynthia--Stanislaus’s teacher--caught constant glimpses of a curious idea that dodged in and out of the little boy’s flow of talk. A queer, elusive, will-o'-the-wisp idea, caught one minute, gone the next, yet informing all the child’s dreams and happy castles of the future.

At first they compared notes on the subject.

'What do you suppose Stanny has got into his head?' Miss Lyman demanded of Miss Cynthia. 'When I told him that Kent Woodward had a little sister, he said, "Has s’e got her eyes open yet?"

'Yes,' agreed Miss Cynthia; 'and when I happened to say that Jimmie Nickle was the biggest blind boy in school, he said he must be awful stupid not to have got his eyes open yet.'

But afterwards they both by common consent avoided the subject. This was because each dreaded that the other might confirm a fear that was shaping itself in their minds.

It is probable that these two loved Stanislaus better than any one else loved him in all the world. Certainly if his father cared more for him, he did not take the trouble to show it, having seemingly washed his hands of the little fellow after turning him over to the school. It was partly his delightful trick of individualizing people in general, and his friends in particular, that had so endeared him to these two. 'I al’us know when it’s you,' he confided to Miss Lyman, as he played with her chatelaine, ''cause I hear vese tinkly fings coming way and away, 'fore you gits here.' While to Miss Cynthia he said, 'I al’us knows you by vat sweet smell.' And often he surprised them by such remarks as 'You don’t like wainy days, do you, Miss Lyman? I heard you tell Miss Cyn-fee-ia vat wainy days de-de-depwessed you.' He got the big word out after a struggle. 'I fink,' he added, 'vat wainy days de-depwess me too.'

This last remark was simply an extra flourish of politeness on his part. Nothing ever really depressed him, and when he said, 'Miss Cyn-fee-ia says s’e likes to laugh; I fink I like to laugh too,' he came much nearer the truth. He did like to laugh, and he loved life and all it had to offer him. Each morning was a wonderful gift to him, and his days went by like a chain of golden beads strung together on a thread of delight.

It was because of his delight in life, and because they loved him, and could not bear that Fate should prick any of his rainbow bubbles, that both Miss Lyman and Miss Cynthia avoided the subject after they had once discovered what tragic little hope his mind was fostering.

Miss Julia, however, was different. Her sensibilities did not lead her into by-paths of pathos; therefore, when she chanced upon Stanislaus’s little secret, she joyfully proclaimed it.

'Well, if that little Stanislaus isn’t the funniest child I ever _did_ see!' she began one evening in the teachers' hall. 'Why, if you’ll believe me, he thinks that children are like kittens and puppies, and are all born blind, and after a while they get their eyes open just like cats and dogs. He thinks he is big enough now to have his eyes open 'most any day. Well, I didn’t tell him any better, but I thought I should die laughing.'

Here Miss Lyman and Miss Cynthia rose with one accord, and left the teachers' hall. Upstairs in Miss Lyman’s room they faced each other.

'You knew?' Miss Cynthia half questioned, half asserted.

'How can I help knowing!' Miss Lyman cried passionately. 'He’s always telling me what he’s going to do when "I’m big an’ can see." It _isn’t_ a foolish idea! It’s a perfectly natural one. Some one has told him about puppies and kittens, and of _course_ he thought children were the same way. It isn’t foolish, it’s--'

'You’ve got to tell him the truth,' Miss Cynthia interposed.

'I won’t,' Miss Lyman declared. 'All his dreams and hopes are centred on that idea.'

'If you don’t tell him, the other boys will find it out soon and laugh at him, and that will be worse.'

'Well, why have I got to tell him? Why don’t you?'

'He loves you best,' Miss Cynthia evaded.

'I don’t believe any one will have to tell him,' Miss Lyman took her up, hopefully. 'I believe it will just drop out of his mind as he gets older. He’ll just cease to believe it without any shock, without ever really knowing when he found out it wasn’t so.'

But she reckoned without Mr. Grey. He, it appeared, had fixed a date for the great event.

'Gwey says,' Stanislaus announced, 'vat he got _his_ eyes open ve day he was five, an’ he dest bets I’ll get mine open ven too.'

Thereafter, all his dreams and plays were inspired by the magic words, 'When I’m five an’ can see.' The sentence served as a mental spring-board to jump his imagination off into a world of wonder where he could see, 'dest--dest as good as big folks' or 'dest as good as Gwey.'

Every day his fifth birthday drew nearer, and Miss Cynthia’s eyes said, You’ve got to tell; and everyday Miss Lyman avoided them.

At last it was the day before his birthday. He waked with the words, 'To-mowwow is my birfday,' on his tongue, and scrambled out of bed, a little night-shirted figure of ecstasy. His dressing that morning--the putting on of his shoes, the scrubbing of his fingers, the rather uncertain brushing of his hair--all went off to the happy refrain of--

'To-mowwow is my birfday, my birfday, my birfday!'

Some deep wisdom kept him from letting the other boys suspect what Mr. Grey had foretold for his birthday; but when he came to Miss Lyman that she might look him over before he went to school, he pulled her down close to whisper, 'I’m goin' to look at _you_ de very first one of all.' And to seal the matter he deposited a kiss in the palm of her hand, and shut her fingers upon it.

'Keep vat till I come back,' he commanded, and went jauntily off to school, where in all probability he made the same engaging promise to Miss Cynthia, and sealed it with the same token. But if he did, one may be certain he hid the token safe away in her hand. He was always shy about kisses, not being quite sure but that they might be visible. You could certainly feel the things, so why mightn’t they be seen as well, sticking right out on one’s cheek, for seeing people to stare at? For this reason, he refused them on his own account, ''cause vey might show'; and those that he gave were always bestowed in the palm of the hand, where the fingers could be closed hastily upon them.

Miss Lyman sat in the clothes room that morning, and sewed and waited. Her needle blurred, and her thread knotted, and the patches seemed more difficult than ever, and all because she had told herself that presently she must take a little boy up in her lap and shatter his dearest hope with truth. She had made up her mind that, when he came from school that morning, she would have to tell him. Therefore she sat and sewed, her whole being tense for the sound of his footsteps. She knew just how he would come--with a sudden scamper up the steps outside. He always ran as soon as his fingers were sure of the rail, because much of his time he was an engine, 'An’ vats ve way twains come up steps.' Then he would whisk around the corner, fumble an instant for the door-handle, and burst in upon her.

But after all, none of these sounds came. Instead, there was suddenly the trampling of grown-up feet, the rush of skirts, and Miss Cynthia threw the door open.

'Oh, come--come quick!' she panted. 'Stanny is hurt--He ran away--Oh, I _told_ him to come straight to you! But he ran away down the road, and a motor--'

Together they sped down the long corridors to the hospital. They had brought Stanny there and laid him on one of the very clean little beds. Such a tiny crushed morsel of humanity in the centre of the big bare room! But his hand moved and he found Miss Lyman’s chatelaine as she bent over him.

'I knowed you was comin' by ve tinkly fings,' he whispered. Then--'I was dest playin' it was my birfday an’ I could see.--Gwey said to.--Is you--is you goin' to punish me vis time?' he quavered.

'No, lovey, no--not this time,' she faltered, for she had caught the look on the doctor’s face.

'Gwey said he al’us dest barked an’ barked at aut’mobiles.--Let me hold ve tinkly fings so’s I will know you is vere.' And by and by he murmured, 'It’ll be my birfday soon--_weal_ soon now, won’t it?'

'Very, very soon now,' she answered, and clinched her hand tight to keep her voice steady.

'Why,' he said, his restless fingers chancing upon her clinched ones, 'why, you is still got my kiss all tight in you hand. I’d fink it would be all melted by now.' A little startled moan cut him short. 'I hurts!' he cried. 'Oh, I _hurts_!'

'Yes,' she answered breathlessly, 'yes, my darling, it will hurt a little.'

'Is it--is it 'cause my eyes is openin'?' he gasped.

'Yes, lovey, that’s the reason.' Her hand held his tight. 'But it won’t hurt long.'

'Gwey never--never said it would hurt like vis,' he sobbed.

The doctor stooped down and made a tiny prick in the baby arm, and after a little Stanislaus lay still.

'He may be conscious again before the end,' the doctor said, 'but I hardly think it is likely.'

He was not. He tossed a little, and murmured broken snatches of words, but he was too busy going along this new exciting path to turn back to the old ways, even to speak to his friends.

Miss Lyman sat beside him all through the bright afternoon, through the tender dusk, and through the dark. Late in the night, he stirred, and cried out with a little happy breath,--

'My _birfday_! It’s _come_!'

And by the time it was morning he had gone.

Miss Lyman closed the eyes that had opened so wide upon another world, drew up all the curtains, that the room might be flooded with the dancing light of his birthday morning, said a little prayer, committing him to his angel, and stole softly away.

A SOLDIER OF THE LEGION

BY E. MORLAE

IT was almost daylight, and things were visible at two to three metres. The bombardment had died down, and the quiet was hardly disturbed by occasional shots. Our captain marched ahead of the second section, swinging a cane and contentedly puffing on his pipe. Nearly everybody was smoking. As we marched along we noticed that new trenches had been dug during the night from sixty to a hundred metres in rear of the position we had held, and were filled by the Twenty-ninth Chasseur Regiment, which replaced us.

Very cunningly these trenches were arranged. They were deep and narrow, fully seven feet deep and barely a yard wide. At every favorable point, on every little rise in the ground, a salient had been constructed, projecting out from the main trench ten to fifteen metres, protected by heavy logs, corrugated steel sheets, and two to three feet of dirt. Each side of the salients bristled with machine-guns. Any attack upon this position would be bound to fail, owing to the intense volume of fire that could be brought to bear upon the flanks of the enemy.

To make assurance doubly sure, the Engineer Corps had dug rows of cup-shaped bowls, two feet in diameter, two feet deep, leaving but a narrow wedge of dirt between each two; and in the centre of each bowl was placed a six-pointed twisted steel 'porcupine.' This instrument, however it is placed, always presents a sharp point right at you. Five rows of these man-traps I counted, separated by a thin wall of dirt not strong enough to maintain the weight of a man, so that any one who attempted to rush past would be thrown against the 'porcupine' and be spitted like a pigeon. As an additional precaution a mass of barbed wire lay in rolls, ready to be placed in front of this ouvrage, to make it safe against any surprise.

We marched along, talking and chatting, discussing this and that, without a care in the world. Every one hoped we were going to the rear to recuperate and enjoy a good square meal and a good night’s rest. Seeger[A] wanted a good wash, he said. He was rather dirty, and so was I. My puttees dangled in pieces round my calves. It seems I had torn them going through the German wire the day before. I told Haeffle to keep his eyes open for a good pair on some dead man. He said he would.

[A] Alan Seeger, the poet, who was later killed in battle.

The company marched round the hill we descended so swiftly yesterday and, describing a semi-circle, entered again the _Schützengraben Spandau_ and marched back in the direction we had come from. The trench, however, presented a different appearance. The bad places had been repaired, the loose dirt had been shoveled out, and the dead had disappeared. On the east side of the trench an extremely high parapet had been built. This parapet was complete even to loop-holes--rather funny-looking loop-holes, I thought; and when I looked closer, I saw that they were framed in by boots! I reached my hand into several of them as we walked along, and touched the limbs of dead men. The engineers, it seems, in need of material, had placed the dead Germans on top of the ground, feet flush with the inside of the ditch, leaving from six to seven inches between two bodies, and laying another body cross-wise on top of the two, spanning the gap between them. Then they had shoveled the dirt on top of them, thus killing two birds with one stone.

The discovery created a riot of excitement among the men. Curses intermingled with laughter came from ahead of us. Everybody was tickled by the ingenuity of our génie. 'They are marvelous!' we thought. Dowd’s face showed consternation, yet he could not help smiling. Little King was pale around the mouth, yet his lips were twisted in a grin. It was horribly amusing.

Every 200 metres we passed groups of the One Hundred and Seventieth, on duty in the trench. The front line, they told us, was twelve hundred metres farther east, and this trench formed the second line for their regiment. We entered the third-line trench of the Germans, from which they ran yesterday to surrender, and continued marching in the same direction--always east. Here we had a chance to investigate the erstwhile German habitations.

Exactly forty paces apart, doorways opened into the dirt bank, and from each of them fourteen steps descended at about forty-five degrees into a cellar-like room. The stairs were built of wood and the sides of the stairways and the chambers below were lined with one-inch pine boards. These domiciles must have been quite comfortable and safe, but now they were choked with bodies. As we continued our leisurely way, we met some of our trench-cleaners, and they recited their experiences with gusto. The Germans, they told us, pointing down into the charnel-houses, refused to come and give up, and even fired at them when summoned to surrender. 'Then what did you do?' I asked. 'Very simple,' answered one. 'We stood on the top of the ground right above the door and hurled grenade after grenade through the doorway until all noise gradually ceased down below. Then we went to the next hole and did the same thing. It wasn’t at all dangerous,' he added, 'and it was very effective.'

We moved but slowly along the trench, and every once in a while there was a halt while some of the men investigated promising 'prospects' where the holes packed with dead Germans held out some promise of loot. Owing to the order of march, the first company was the last one in line, and my section at the very end. The head of the column was the fourth company, then the third, then the second, and then we. By the time my section came to any hole holding out hopes of souvenirs, there was nothing left for us. Yet I did find a German officer with a new pair of puttees, and, hastily unwinding them, I discarded my own and put on the new ones. As I bound them on I noticed the name on the tag--'Hindenburg.' I suppose that name stands for quality with the Boches.

We left the trench and swung into another communication trench, going to the left, still in an easterly direction, straight on toward the Butte de Souain. That point, we knew, was still in the hands of the Germans, and very quickly they welcomed us. Shells came shrieking down--105mm., 150, 210, and 250. It’s very easy to tell when you are close to them, even if you can’t see a thing. When a big shell passes high, it sounds like a white-hot piece of iron suddenly doused in cold water; but when it gets close, the sw-i-ish suddenly rises in a high crescendo, a shriek punctuated by a horrible roar. The uniformity of movement as the men ducked was beautiful--and they all did it! One moment there was a line of gray helmets bobbing up and down the trenches as the line plodded on; and the next instant one could see only a line of black canvas close to the ground, as every man ducked and shifted his shoulder-sack over his neck. My sack had been blown to pieces when I was buried, and I felt uncomfortably handicapped, with only my _musette_ for protection against steel splinters.

About a mile from where we entered this boyau we came to a temporary halt, then went on once more. The fourth company had come to a halt, and we squeezed past them as we marched along. Every man of them had his shovel out and had commenced digging a niche for himself. We passed the fourth company, then the third, then the second, and finally the first, second, and third sections of our own company. Just beyond, we ourselves came to a halt and, lining up one man to the metre, started to organize the trench for defensive purposes. From the other side of a slight ridge, east of us and about six hundred metres away, came the sound of machine-guns. Between us and the ridge the Germans were executing a very lively _feu de barrage_, a screen of fire prohibiting any idea of sending reinforcements over to the front line.

Attached for rations to my section were the major of the battalion, a captain, and three sergeants of the état-major. Two of the sergeants were at the trench telephone, and I could hear them report the news to the officers. 'The Germans' they reported, 'are penned in on three sides and are prevented from retreating by our artillery.' Twice they had attempted to pierce our line between them and the Butte de Souain, and twice they were driven back. Good news for us!

At 10 A.M. we sent three men from each section to the rear for the soup. At about eleven they reappeared with steaming _marmites_ of soup, stew, coffee, and buckets of wine. The food was very good, and disappeared to the last morsel.

After eating, the captains granted me permission to walk along the ditch back to the fourth company. The trench being too crowded for comfort, I walked alongside to the second company, and searched for my friend, Sergeant Velte. Finally I found him lying in a shell-hole, side by side with his adjutant and Sergeant Morin. All three were dead, torn to pieces by one shell shortly after we had passed them in the morning. At the third company they reported that Second Lieutenant Sweeny had been shot through the chest by a lost ball that morning. Hard luck for Sweeny! The poor devil had just been nominated _sous-lieutenant_ at the request of the French Embassy in Washington; and when he was attached as supernumerary to the third company we all had hopes that he would have a chance to prove his merit.

In the fourth company also the losses were severe. The part of the trench occupied by the three companies was directly enfiladed by the German batteries on the Butte de Souain, and every little while a shell would fall square into the ditch and take toll from the occupants. Our company was fully a thousand metres nearer to these batteries, but the trenches we occupied presented a three-quarter face to the fire, and consequently were ever so much harder to hit. Even then, when I got back I found four men _hors de combat_ in the fourth section. In my section two niches were demolished without any one being hit.

Time dragged slowly until four in the afternoon, when we had soup again. Many of the men built little fires, and with the _Erbsenwurst_ they had found on dead Germans prepared a very palatable soup by way of extra rations.

At four o’clock sentries were posted and everybody fell asleep. A steady rain was falling, and to keep dry we hooked one edge of our tent-sheet on the ground above the niche and put dirt on top of it to hold. Then we pushed cartridges through the buttonholes of the tent, pinning them into the side of the trench, and forming a good cover for the occupant of the hole. Thus we rested until the new day broke, bringing a clear sky and sunshine. This day, the 27th,--the third of the battle,--passed without mishap to my section. We spent our time eating and sleeping, mildly distracted by an intermittent bombardment.

Another night spent in the same cramped quarters! We were getting weary of inactivity, and it was rather hard work to keep the men in the ditch. They sneaked off singly and in pairs, always heading back to the German dug-outs, all bent on turning things upside down in the hope of finding something of value to carry as a keepsake.

Haeffle came back once with three automatic pistols, but no cartridges; from another trip he returned with an officer’s helmet; and the third time he brought triumphantly back a string three feet long of dried sausages. Haeffle always did have a healthy appetite, and it transpired that on the way back he had eaten a dozen sausages, more or less. The dried meat had made him thirsty and he had drunk half a canteen of water on top of it. The result was, he swelled up like a poisoned pup, and for a time he was surely a sick man.

Zinn found two shiny German bayonets, a long thin one, and one short and heavy, and swore he would pack them for a year if he had to. Zinn hailed from Battle Creek and wanted to use them as brush-knives on camping trips in the Michigan woods; but alas, in the sequel they got too heavy and were dropped along the road. One man found a German pipe with a three-foot soft-rubber stem, which he intended sending to his brother as a souvenir. Man and pipe are buried on the slopes of the Butte de Souain. He died that same evening.

At the usual time--4 P.M.--we had soup, and just after that, came the order to get ready. Looking over the trench, we watched the fourth company form in the open back of the ditch and, marching past us in an oblique direction, disappear round a spur of wooded hill. The third company followed at four hundred metres distance, then the second; and as they passed out of sight around the hill, we jumped out, and, forming in line sections at thirty-metre intervals, each company four hundred metres in the rear of the one ahead, we followed, _arme à la bretelle_.

We were quite unobserved by the enemy, and marched the length of the hill for three fourths of a kilometre, keeping just below the crest. Above us sailed four big French battle-planes and some small aero scouts, on the lookout for enemy aircraft. For a while it seemed as if we should not be discovered, and the command was given to lie down. From where we lay we could observe clearly the ensuing scrap in the air, and it was worth watching. Several German planes had approached close to our lines, but were discovered by the swift-flying scouts. Immediately the little fellows returned with the news to the big planes, and we watched the monster biplanes mount to the combat. In a wide circle they swung, climbing, climbing higher and higher, and then headed in a bee-line straight toward the German _Tauben_. As they approached within range of each other, we saw little clouds appear close to the German planes, some in front, some over them, and others behind; and then, after an interval, the report of the 32mm. guns mounted on our battle-planes floated down to us, immediately followed like an echo by the crack of the bursting shell. Long before the Germans could get within effective range for their machine-guns, they were peppered by our planes and ignominiously forced to beat a retreat. One Albatross seemed to be hit. He staggered from one side to the other, then dipped forward, and, standing straight on his nose, dropped like a stone out of sight behind the forest crowning the hill.

Again we moved on, and shortly arrived at the southern spur of the hill. Here the company made a quarter turn to the left, and in the same formation began the ascent of the hill. The second company was just disappearing into the scrubby pine forest on top. We entered also, continued on to the top, and halted just below the crest. The captain called the officers and sergeants, and, following him, we crawled on our stomachs up to the highest point and looked over.

Never shall I forget the panorama that spread before us! The four thin ranks of the second company seemed to stagger drunkenly through a sea of green fire and smoke. One moment gaps showed in the lines, only to be closed again as the rear files spurted. Undoubtedly they ran at top speed, but to us watchers they seemed to crawl, and at times almost to stop. Mixed in with the dark green of the grass covering the valley were rows of lighter color, telling of the men who fell in that mad sprint. The continuous bombardment sounded like a giant drum beating an incredibly swift _rataplan_. Along the whole length of our hill this curtain of shells was dropping, leveling the forest and seemingly beating off the very face of the hill itself, clean down to the bottom of the valley. Owing to the proximity of our troops to the enemy’s batteries, we received hardly any support from our own big guns, and the rôle of the combatants was entirely reversed. The Germans had their innings then, and full well they worked.

As the company descended into the valley the pace became slower, and at the beginning of the opposite slope they halted and faced back. Owing to the height of the Butte de Souain, they were safe, and they considered that it was their turn to act as spectators.

As our captain rose, we followed and took our places in front of our sections. Again I impressed upon the minds of my men the importance of following in a straight line and as close behind one another as possible. '_Arme à la main_!' came the order, and slowly we moved to the crest and then immediately broke into a dog-trot. Instantly we were enveloped in flames and smoke. Hell kissed us welcome! Closely I watched the captain for the sign to increase our speed. I could have run a mile in record time, but he plugged steadily along, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four,--at a tempo of a hundred and eighty steps per minute, three to the second,--the regulation tempo. Inwardly I cursed his insistence upon having things _réglementaires_.

As I looked at the middle of his back, longing for him to hurry, I caught sight, on my right, of a shell exploding directly in the centre of the third section. Out of the tail of my eye I saw the upper part of Corporal Keraudy’s body rise slowly into the air. The legs had disappeared, and with arms outstretched the trunk sank down on the corpse of Varma, the Hindu, who had marched behind him. Instinctively, I almost stopped in my tracks: Keraudy was a friend of mine; but at the instant Corporal Mettayer, running behind me, bumped into my back, and shoved me again into life and action.

We were out of the woods then, and running down the bare slope of the hill. A puff of smoke, red-hot, smote me in the face, and at the same moment intense pain shot up my jaw. I did not think I was hit seriously, since I was able to run all right. Some one in the second section intoned the regimental march, '_Allons, giron_.' Others took it up; and there, in that scene of death and hell, this song portraying the lusts and vices of the _Légion Étrangère_ became a very pæan of enthusiasm and courage.

Glancing to the right, I saw that we were getting too close to the second section, so I gave the signal for a left oblique. We bore away from them until once again at our thirty paces distance. All at once my feet tangled up in something and I almost fell. It was long grass! Just then it seemed to grow upon my mind that we were down in the valley and out of range of the enemy. Then I glanced ahead, and not over a hundred metres away I saw the second company lying in the grass and watching us coming. As we neared, they shouted little pleasantries at us and congratulated us upon our speed.

'Why this unseemly haste?' one wants to know.

'You go to the devil!' answers Haeffle.

'_Merci, mon ami_!' retorts the first; 'I have just come through his back kitchen.'

Counting my section, I missed Dubois, St. Hilaire, and Schueli. Collette, Joe told me, was left on the hill.

The company had lost two sergeants, one corporal, and thirteen men coming down that short stretch! We mustered but forty-five men, all told. One, Sergeant Terisien, had commanded my section, the 'American Section,' for four months, but was transferred to the fourth. From where we rested we could see him slowly descending the hill, bareheaded and with his right hand clasping his left shoulder. He had been severely wounded in the head, and his left arm was nearly torn off at the shoulder. Poor devil! He was a good comrade and a good soldier. Just before the war broke out he had finished his third enlistment in the Legion, and was in line for a discharge and pension when he died.

Looking up the awful slope we had just descended, we could see the bodies of our comrades, torn and mangled and again and again kicked up into the air by the shells. For two days and nights the hellish hail continued to beat upon that blood-soaked slope, until we finally captured the Butte de Souain and forced an entire regiment of Saxons to the left of the butte to capitulate.

Again we assembled in column of fours, and this time began the climb up hill. Just then I happened to think of the blow I had received under the jaw, and, feeling of the spot, discovered a slight wound under my left jaw-bone. Handing my rifle to a man, I pressed slightly upon the sore spot and pulled a steel splinter out of the wound. A very thin, long sliver of steel it was, half the diameter of a dime and not more than a dime’s thickness, but an inch and a half long. The metal was still hot to the touch. The scratch continued bleeding freely, but I did not bandage it at the time because I felt sure of needing my emergency dressing farther along.

Up near the crest of the hill we halted in an angle of the woods and lay down alongside the One Hundred and Seventy-Second Regiment of infantry. They had made the attack in this direction on the 25th, but had been severely checked at this point. Infantry and machine-gun fire sounded very close, and lost bullets by the hundreds flicked through the branches overhead. The One Hundred and Seventy-Second informed us that a battalion of the _Premier Étranger_ had entered the forest and was at that moment storming a position to our immediate left. Through the trees showed lights, brighter than day, cast from hundreds of German magnesium candles shot into the air.

Our officers were grouped with those of the other regiment, and after a very long conference they separated, each to his command. Our captain called the officers and subalterns of the company together, and in terse sentences explained to us our positions and the object of the coming assault. It was to be a purely local affair, and the point was the clearing of the enemy from the hill we were on. On a map drawn to scale he pointed out the lay of the land.