Part 27 (1/2)

So centred was Dellarme in watching his men and the effect of their fire that he did not notice the two silhouettes on the sky-line, making ridicule of all his care about keeping his company under cover, until the doctor, who alone had nothing to do as yet, touched him on the arm.

At the moment he looked around, and before he could speak a command, a hospital-corps man who was near Grandfather Fragini threw himself in a low tackle and brought the old man to earth, while the company sergeant sprang for Stransky with an oath. But Stransky was in no mood to submit.

He felled the sergeant with a blow and, recklessly defiant, stared at Dellarme, while the men, steadily firing, were still oblivious of the scene. The sergeant, stunned, rose to his knees and reached for his revolver. Dellarme, bent over to keep his head below the crest, had already drawn his as he hastened toward them.

”Stransky,” said Dellarme, ”you have struck an officer under fire! You have refused to fight! Within the law I am warranted in shooting you dead!”

”Well!” answered Stransky, throwing back his head, his face seeming all big, bony nose and heavy jaw and burning eyes.

”Will you get down? Will you take your place with your rifle?” demanded Dellarme.

Stransky laughed thunderously in scorn. He was handsome, t.i.tanic, and barbaric, with his huge shoulders stretching his blouse, which fell loosely around his narrow hips, while the fist that had felled the sergeant was still clenched.

”No!” said Stransky. ”You won't kill much if you kill me and you'd kill less if you shot yourself! G.o.d Almighty! Do you think I'm afraid?

Me--afraid?”

His eyes in a bloodshot glare, as uncompromising as those of a bull in an arena watching the next move of the red cape of the matador, regarded Dellarme, who hesitated in the revulsion of the horror of killing and in admiration of the picture of human force before him. But the old sergeant, smarting under the insult of the blow, his sandstone features mottled with red patches, had no compunctions of this order. He was ready to act as executioner.

”If you don't want to shoot, I can! An example--the law! There's no other way of dealing with him! Give the word!” he said to Dellarme.

Stransky laughed, now in strident cynicism. It was the laugh of the red, of b.a.s.t.a.r.dy, of blanketless nights in the hedgerows, and boot soles worn through to the macadam, with the dust of speeding automobiles blown in the gaunt face of hunger. Dellarme still hesitated, recollecting Lanstron's remark. He pictured Stransky in a last stand in a redoubt, and every soldier was as precious to him as a piece of gold to a miser.

”One ought to be enough to kill me if you're going to do it to slow music,” said Stransky. ”You might as well kill me as the poor fools that your poor fools are trying to--”

Another breath finished the speech; a breath released from a ball that seemed to have come straight from h.e.l.l. The fire-control officer of a regiment of Gray artillery on the plain, scanning the landscape for the origin of the rifle-fire which was leaving many fallen in the wake of the charge of the Gray infantry, had seen two figures on the knoll. ”How kind! Thank you!” his thought spoke faster than words. No need of range-finding! The range to every possible battery or infantry position around La Tir was already marked on his map. He pa.s.sed the word to his guns.

The burst of their first shrapnel-sh.e.l.l blinded all three actors in the scene on the crest of the knoll with its ear-splitting crack and the force of its concussion threw Stransky down beside the sergeant.

Dellarme, as his vision cleared, had just time to see Stransky jerk his hand up to his temple, where there was a red spot, before another sh.e.l.l burst, a little to the rear. This was harmless, as a shrapnel's shower of fragments and bullets carry forward from the point of explosion. But the next burst in front of the line. The doctor's period of idleness was over. One man's rifle shot up as his spine was broken by a jagged piece of shrapnel jacket. Now there were too many sh.e.l.ls to watch them individually.

”It's all right--all right, men!” Dellarme called again, a.s.suming his cheery smile. ”It takes a lot of shrapnel to kill anybody. Our batteries will soon answer!”

His voice was unheard, yet its spirit was felt. The men knew through their training that there was no use of dodging and that their best protection was an accurate fire of their own.

”Sh.e.l.ling us, the ---- ----!” gasped Grandfather Fragini, who had experience, if he were weak in reading and writing. ”All noise and smoke!”--as it was to a larger degree in his day.

Stransky had half risen, a new kind of savagery dawning on his features as he regained his wits. With inverted eyes he regarded the red ends of his fingers, held in line with the bridge of his nose. He felt of the wound again, now that he was less dizzy. It was only a scratch and he had been knocked down like a beef in an abattoir by an unseen enemy, on whom he could not lay hands! He glared around as if in search of the hidden antagonist. The sergeant had crept forward to be a steadying influence to the men in their first trial, if need be, and the doctor and a hospital-corps man were dragging a wounded man out of fine without exposing their own shoulders above the crest. Stransky rolled his eyes in and out; the tendons of his neck swelled; his jaw worked as if crunching pebbles. Deafeningly, the shrapnel jackets continued to crack with ”ukung-s-sh--ukung-s-sh” as the swift breath of the shrapnel missiles spread.

”Give it to 'em! Give it to 'em!” Grandfather Fragini cried, his old voice a quavering bird note in the pandemonium. ”My, but they do come fast!” he gasped.

Yes, a trifle faster than in your day, grandfather, when a gun of the horse-artillery had to be relaid after the recoil, which is now taken up by an oil chamber, while the gunner on his seat behind the breech keeps the sight steady on the target. The guns of one battery of that Gray regiment of artillery, each firing six fourteen-pound sh.e.l.ls a minute methodically, every sh.e.l.l loaded with nearly two hundred projectiles, were giving their undivided attention to the knoll.

How long could his company endure this? Dellarme might well ask. He knew that he would not be expected to withdraw yet. With a sense of relief he saw Fraca.s.se's men drop for cover at the base of the knoll and then, expectation fulfilled, he realized that rifle-fire now reinforced the enemy's sh.e.l.l fire. His duty was to remain while he could hold his men, and a feeling toward them such as he had never felt before, which was love, sprang full-fledged into his heart as he saw how steadily they kept up their fusillade.

The sergeant, who now had time to think of Stransky, was seized with a spasm of retributive rage. He drew his revolver determinedly.

”You brought this on! I'll do for you!” he cried, turning toward the spot where he had left Stransky, only to lower his revolver in amazement as he saw Stransky, eager in response to a new pa.s.sion, spring forward into place and pick up his rifle.

”If you will not have it my way, take it yours!” said the best shot in the company, as he began firing with resolute coolness.

”They have a lot of men down,” said Dellarme, his gla.s.ses showing the many prostrate figures on the wheat stubble. ”Steady! steady! We have plenty of batteries back in the hills. One will be in action soon.”