The first day’s battle brought to many a raw recruit the sharp need of
military training. Many a man who had never consciously known the
meaning of fear waked to find his knees trembling and hung his head in
shame at the revelation.
Tommaso had led his squad into the trenches before his bitter hour of
self-revelation came. He had caught a glimpse of his wife and boy in a
group of panic-stricken refugees and the sight had taken the last ounce
of courage out of him. He was going to be killed. He knew it now with
awful certainty. What would become of his loved ones? All night in the
trenches he brooded over it. When the sun rose he was only waiting for a
chance to run in the excitement of battle. He swore he would not leave
his wife and child to starve!
Angela carrying the poor little fear-stricken monkey, with the boy
tightly gripping his dog Sausage, trying to save his kitten and his
mother lugging a huge bundle had penetrated the American lines and found
Vassar the day of the opening fight.
The leader had hustled them from the field and they had taken refuge in
a cabin behind the trenches. With the first gray dawn, the aeroplanes
began to drop shells from the sky. An aerial bomb exploded within twenty
feet of the cabin.
Angela leaped to the door, gathered her boy and pets and shouted to her
terror-stricken neighbor.
“Come--quick! we will be torn to pieces--we must run--”
In dumb panic, Mrs. Schultz gathered her own boy convulsively in her
arms and refused to stir.
Angela sprang through the door and hurried across the hills. The others
crouched in the corner of the cabin and waited.
A black ball again shot downward, crashed through the roof of the cabin,
exploded and sent the frail structure leaping into the heavens.
The airmen far up in the sky saw the column of flame and smoke and
débris:
“Good--we got ’em that crack!” the driver shouted above the whirr of his
motor.
By one of the strange miracles of war Sausage crawled over the dead body
of his mother still clinging to the kitten and found his way into the
woods without a scratch.
Angela was just staggering to the crest of the ridge when the shell
exploded and hurled the cabin into space. A sickening wave of horror
swept her soul and she suddenly sank in a heap. In vain poor Sam the
monk tried to rouse her. His deep curious monkey eyes swept the
smoke-wreathed heavens in terror as again and again he stroked the white
still face of his fallen mistress.
For the first time since they had left home on the wild journey the
childish smile left the boy’s face. His war picnic had ended in grim
tragedy after all. He couldn’t believe it at first and the tears came in
spite of his struggle to hold them back. In vain he shook his mother.
She lay flat on her back now, her chalk-white face upturned in the sun.
The boy was still crying when he felt the nudge of another arm against
his. He lifted his tear-stained face and saw Sausage’s smoke-begrimmed
cheeks and the look of dumb anguish in his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” the boy sobbed.
“My mamma’s killed”--was the low answer.
The swarthy face of the little Italian pressed close to the fair German,
and their arms stole round each other’s neck.
Angela waking from her faint found them thus and gathered them into her
arms.
She was still soothing their fears when Tommaso
[Illustration: “Tommaso staggered to the breastworks and stood one man
against an army”]
crawling on hands and knees in mortal terror from the battlefield,
suddenly came upon them.
In her surprise and joy over his protection Angela failed to note at
first the meaning of his sudden appearance.
“O my Tommaso!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms.
He held her close for a moment and whispered excitedly:
“I come to take you home, my Angela. You will be killed--you must not be
here--”
It was not until he had spoken that the wife caught the note of cowardly
terror in his voice. Her arms slipped slowly from his neck.
He hurried to repeat his warning:
“You must go quick, my Angela!”
The wife searched his soul and he turned away. She put her hand on his
shoulder and her own eyes filled with tears.
“Come--we must hurry”--Tommaso urged, seizing his gun and starting to
rise.
Angela held his hand firmly and pointed to the smoke-covered field
below.
“No--no--my man. Your place is there to fight for our bambino and his
country--you just forgot for a little while. I know--I understand. I
felt my heart melt and my poor knees go down--you go now and fight for
us!”
The man trembled and could not meet her eye.
A shell exploded near, hurling the dust and gravel in advance clear
above them. A piece of iron buried itself in the earth but three feet
away.
Angela cried in terror. The man suddenly stiffened, looked into the face
of his boy, rose, seized his rifle, kissed his wife and rushed down the
red lane of death to the front.
Angela watched him with pride and terror. He was still in plain view in
the little valley below when he met the ragged lines of our retreating
men. The color-bearer fell. Tommaso seized the flag and called the men
to rally.
Through a hell of bursting shrapnel and machine-gun fire he turned the
tide of retreat into a charge--a charge that never faltered until the
last man fell on the slippery slopes of blood below the trenches of the
enemy.
Tommaso staggered to the breastworks and stood one man against an army
cheering and calling his charge to the field of the dead.
The enemy rose in the trenches and cheered the lone figure silhouetted
against the darkened heavens until he sank at last exhausted from the
loss of blood.