Ahead, men were fishing in their sacks and throwing bombs like a pack of boys stoning a snake; I caught glimpses of them furiously at work from where I knelt beside one fallen man after another, desperately busy with my own business.
Bearers ran out where I was at work, not my own company but some French ambulance sections who served me as well as their own surgeons where, in a sh.e.l.l crater partly full of water, we found some shelter for the wounded.
Over us black smoke from the Jack Johnsons rolled as it rolls out of the stacks of soft-coal burning locomotives; the outrageous din never slackened, but our deafened ears had become insensible under the repeated blows of sound, yet not paralyzed. For I remember, squatting there in that sh.e.l.l crater, hearing a cricket tranquilly tuning up between the thunderclaps which shook earth and sods down on us and wrinkled the pool of water at our feet.
The Legion had taken the trench; but the place was a rabbit warren where hundreds of holes and burrows and ditches and communicating runways made a bewildering maze.
And everywhere in the dull, flame-shot obscurity, the Legionaries ran about like ghouls in their hoods and round, hollow eye-holes; masked faces, indistinct in the smoke, loomed grotesque and horrible as Ku-Klux where the bayonets were at work digging out the enemy from blind burrows, turning them up from their b.l.o.o.d.y forms.
Rifles blazed down into bomb-proofs, cracked steadily over the heads of comrades who piled up sandbags to block communication trenches; grenade-bombs rained down through the smoke into trenches, blowing b.l.o.o.d.y gaps in huddling ma.s.ses of struggling Teutons until they flattened back against the parados and lifted arms and gun-b.u.t.ts stammering out, "Comrades! Comrades!"--in the ghastly irony of surrender.
A man whose entire helmet, gas-mask, and face had been blown off, and who was still alive and trying to speak, stiffened, relaxed, and died in my arms. As I rolled him aside and turned to the next man whom the bearers were lowering into the crater, his respirator and goggles fell apart, and I found myself looking into the ashy face of Duck Werner.
As we laid him out and stripped away iron helmet and tunic, he said in a natural and distinct voice.
"Through the belly, Doc. Gimme a drink."
There was no more water or stimulant at the moment and the puddle in the crater was b.l.o.o.d.y. He said, patiently, "All right; I can wait.... It"s in the belly.... It ain"t nothin", is it?"
I said something rea.s.suring, something about the percentage of recovery I believe, for I was exceedingly busy with Duck"s anatomy.
"Pull me through, Doc?" he inquired calmly.
"Sure...."
"Aw, listen, Doc. Don"t hand me no cones of hokey-pokey. Gimme a deck of the stuff. Dope out the c.o.ke. Do I get mine this trip?"
I looked at him, hesitating.
"Listen, Doc, am I hurted bad? Gimme a hones" deal. Do I croak?"
"Don"t talk, Duck----"
"Dope it straight. _Do_ I?"
"Yes."
"I thought you"d say that," he returned serenely. "Now I"m goin" to fool you, same as I fooled them guys at Bellevue the night that Mike the Kike shot me up in the subway."
A pallid sneer stretched his thin and burning lips; in his ratty eyes triumph gleamed.
"I"ve went through worse than this. I ain"t hurted bad. I ain"t got mine just yet, old scout! Would I leave meself croak--an" that b.u.m, Mike the Kike, handin" me fren"s the ha-ha! Gawd," he muttered hazily, as though his mind was beginning to cloud, "just f"r that I"ll get up an"--an"
go--home--" His voice flattened out and he lay silent.
Working over the next man beyond him and glancing around now and then to discover a _brancardier_ who might take Duck to the rear, I presently caught his eyes fixed on me.
"Say, Doc, will you talk--business?" he asked in a dull voice.
"Be quiet, Duck, the bearers will be here in a minute or two----"
"T"h.e.l.l wit them guys! I"m askin" you will you make it fifty-fifty--"r"
somethin"--" Again his voice trailed away, but his bright ratty eyes were indomitable.
I was bloodily occupied with another patient when something struck me on the shoulder--a human hand, clutching it. Duck was sitting upright, eyes a-glitter, the other hand pressed heavily over his abdomen.
"Fifty-fifty!" he cried in a shrill voice. "F"r Christ"s sake, Doc, talk business--" And life went out inside him--like the flame of a suddenly snuffed candle--while he still sat there....
I heard the air escaping from his lungs before he toppled over.... I swear to you it sounded like a whispered word--"business."
"Then came their gas--a great, thick, yellow billow of it pouring into our sh.e.l.l hole.... I couldn"t get my mask on fast enough ... and here I am, Gray, wondering, but really knowing.... Are you stopping at the Club tonight?"
"Yes."
Vail got to his feet unsteadily: "I"m feeling rather done in.... Won"t sit up any longer, I guess.... See you in the morning?"
"Yes," said Gray.
"Good-night, then. Look in on me if you leave before I"m up."
And that is how Gray saw him before he sailed--stopped at his door, knocked, and, receiving no response, opened and looked in. After a few moments" silence he understood that the "Seed of Death" had sprouted.
CHAPTER XIII
MULETEERS
Lying far to the southwest of the battle line, only when a strong northwest wind blew could Sainte Lesse hear the thudding of cannon beyond the horizon. And once, when the northeast wind had blown steadily for a week, on the wings of the driving drizzle had come a faint but dreadful odour which hung among the streets and lanes until the wind changed.
Except for the carillon, nothing louder than the call of a cuckoo, the lowing of cattle or a goatherd"s piping ever broke the summer silence in the little town. Birds sang; a shallow river rippled; breezes ruffled green grain into long, silvery waves across the valley; sunshine fell on quiet streets, on scented gardens unsoiled by war, on groves and meadows, and on the stone-edged brink of br.i.m.m.i.n.g pools where washerwomen knelt among the wild flowers, splashing amid floating pyramids of snowy suds.
And into the exquisite peace of this little paradise rode John Burley with a thousand American mules.
The town had been warned of this impending visitation; had watched preparations for it during April and May when a corral was erected down in a meadow and some huts and stables were put up among the groves of poplar and sycamore, and a small barracks was built to accommodate the negro guardians of the mules and a peloton of gendarmes under a fat brigadier.
Sainte Lesse as yet knew nothing personally of the American mule or of Burley. Sainte Lesse heard both before it beheld either--Burley"s loud, careless, swaggering voice above the hee-haw of his trampling herds:
"All I ask for is human food, Smith--not luxuries--just food!--and that of the commonest kind."
And now an immense volume of noise and dust enveloped the main street of Sainte Lesse, stilling the quiet noon gossip of the town, silencing the birds, awing the town dogs so that their impending barking died to amazed gurgles drowned in the din of the mules.
Astride a cream-coloured, wall-eyed mule, erect in his saddle, talkative, gesticulating, good-humoured, famished but gay, rode Burley at the head of the column, his reckless grey eyes glancing amiably right and left at the good people of Sainte Lesse who cl.u.s.tered silently at their doorways under the trees to observe the pa.s.sing of this noisy, unfamiliar procession.