"I seen Dan shoot a feller yesterday. Yes, sir. I'm sure it was him
that done it. And maybe he thinks about that feller now, and wonders if
he tumbled down just about the same way. Them things come up in a man's
mind."
Bivouac fires upon the sidewalks, in the streets, in the yards, threw
high their wavering reflections, which examined, like slim, red
fingers, the dingy, scarred walls and the piles of tumbled brick. The
droning of voices again arose from great blue crowds.
The odour of frying bacon, the fragrance from countless little
coffee-pails floated among the ruins. The rifles, stacked in the
shadows, emitted flashes of steely light. Wherever a flag lay
horizontally from one stack to another was the bed of an eagle which
had led men into the mystic smoke.
The men about a particular fire were engaged in holding in check their
jovial spirits. They moved whispering around the blaze, although they
looked at it with a certain fine contentment, like labourers after a
day's hard work.
There was one who sat apart. They did not address him save in tones
suddenly changed. They did not regard him directly, but always in
little sidelong glances.
At last a soldier from a distant fire came into this circle of light.
He studied for a time the man who sat apart. Then he hesitatingly
stepped closer, and said: "Got any news, Dan?"
"No," said Dan.
The new-comer shifted his feet. He looked at the fire, at the sky, at
the other men, at Dan. His face expressed a curious despair; his tongue
was plainly in rebellion. Finally, however, he contrived to say: "Well,
there's some chance yet, Dan. Lots of the wounded are still lying out
there, you know. There's some chance yet."
"Yes," said Dan.
The soldier shifted his feet again, and looked miserably into the air.
After another struggle he said: "Well, there's some chance yet, Dan."
He moved hastily away.
One of the men of the squad, perhaps encouraged by this example, now
approached the still figure. "No news yet, hey?" he said, after
coughing behind his hand.
"No," said Dan.
"Well," said the man, "I've been thinking of how he was fretting about
you the night you went on special duty. You recollect? Well, sir, I was
surprised. He couldn't say enough about it. I swan, I don't believe he
slep' a wink after you left, but just lay awake cussing special duty
and worrying. I was surprised. But there he lay cussing. He----"
Dan made a curious sound, as if a stone had wedged in his throat. He
said: "Shut up, will you?"
Afterward the men would not allow this moody contemplation of the fire
to be interrupted.
"Oh, let him alone, can't you?"
"Come away from there, Casey!"
"Say, can't you leave him be?"
They moved with reverence about the immovable figure, with its
countenance of mask-like invulnerability.