Part 62 (1/2)

XL

WITH FRACa.s.sE'S MEN

We have heard nothing of Jacob Pilzer, the butcher's son, and Peterkin, the valet's son, and others of Fraca.s.se's company of the 128th of the Grays since Hugo Mallin threw down his rifle when they were firing on scattered Brown soldiers in retreat.

It was in one of the minor actions of the step-by-step advance after the taking of the Galland house that the judge's son received official notice of a holiday in the form of a nickel pellet from the Browns which made a clean, straight hole the size of a lead pencil through his flesh and then went singing on its way without deflection, as if it liked to give respites from travail to tired soldiers.

”Grazed the ribs--no arteries!” remarked the examining surgeon. ”You'll be well in a month.”

”We'll hold the war for you!” called the banker's son cheerily after the still figure on the stretcher.

”And you'll get gruel and custards, maybe,” said the barber's son. ”I like custards.”

Once the judge's son had thought that nothing could be so grand as to be wounded fighting for one's country. He had in mind then, as the object of his boyish admiration, a young officer returned from a little campaign against the blacks in Africa, when, the casualties being few and the scene distant and picturesque, all heroes with scars had an aspect of romantic exclusiveness. But there was no more distinction now in being wounded than in catching cold. Truly, colonial wars were the only satisfactory kind.

The judge's son found himself one of many men on cots in long rows in the former barracks of the Browns near La Tir. Daily bulletins told the patients the names of the positions taken and daily they heard of fresh batches of wounded arriving, which were not mentioned on the bulletin-board.

”We continue to win,” said the doctors and nurses invariably in answer to all questions. ”General Westerling announces that everything is going as planned.”

”You must know that speech well!” observed the judge's son to the nurse of his section.

Her lips twitched in a kind of smile.

”Letter-perfect!” she replied ”It's official.”

In two weeks, so fast had the puncture from the aseptic little pellet of civilized warfare healed under civilization's medical treatment, the judge's son was up and about, though very weak. But the rules strictly confined his promenades to the barracks yard. There might be news coming down the traffic-gorged castle road out of the region where the guns sounded that convalescents were not intended to hear. For news could travel in other ways than by bulletin-boards; and the judge's son, merely watching the faces of medical officers, guessed that it was depressing. But after the first attack on Engadir their faces lighted.

The very thrill of victory seemed to be in the air.

”It's in the main line of defence!” called the doctor on his morning rounds of the cots. ”They've made Westerling a field-marshal. He's outwitted the Browns! In a few days now we'll have the range!”

How staggering was the cost he was not to realize till later, when the ambulance stewards kept repeating:

”More to come!”

A newcomer, who took the place of a man who had died on the cot next to the judge's son, had been in the fight. He was still ether-sick and weak from the amputation of his right arm, with a dazed, gla.s.sy, and far-away look in his eyes, as if everything in the world was strange and uncertain.

”The fearful flashes--the explosions--the gusts of steel in the air!”

he whispered.

The next night Westerling followed up his supposed advantage at Engadir as he had planned, and there was no sleep for the thunders and the light of the explosions through the barracks-room windows.

”I can see what is happening and feel--and feel!” said the man who had been at Engadir.

In the morning the bulletin announced that more positions were taken, with very heavy losses--to the enemy. But the news that travelled unofficially from tongue to tongue down the castle road and spoke in the faces of doctors and nurses said, ”And to us!” plainly enough, even if the judge's son had not heard a doctor remark:

”It's awful--inconceivable! Not a hospital tent in this division is unoccupied. Most of the houses in town are full, and we're preparing for another grand attack!”

Now for two days the guns kept up their roar.