Two lines of helmeted men went over the crest of the hill. Private Cowan
was no longer conscious of aching feet and leaden legs or of the burden
that bowed his shoulders. There was a pounding in his ears, and in his
mind a verse of Scripture that had lingered inexplicably there since
their last billet at Comprey. His corporal, late a theological student,
had read and expounded bits of the Bible to such as would listen.
Forsaking beaten paths, he had one day explored Revelations. He had
explained the giving unto seven angels of seven golden vials of the
wrath of God, but later came upon a verse that gave him pause:
"And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the
sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve
stars."
It seemed that everything in Revelations had a hidden meaning, and the
expert found this obscure. There had been artless speculation among the
listeners. A private with dice had professed to solve the riddle of the
Number Seven, and had even alleged that twelve might be easier to throw
if one kept repeating the verse, but this by his fellows was held to be
rank superstition. No really acceptable exposition had been offered of
the woman clothed with the sun, and under her feet the moon, and upon
her head a crown of twelve stars.
Wilbur Cowan, marching up the hill, now sounded the words to himself;
they went with that pounding in his ears. At last he knew what they
meant--a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and under
her feet the moon. Over and over he chanted the words.
So much was plain to him. But how had it come about? They had looked,
then enveloped each other, not thinking, blindly groping. They had been
out of themselves, not on guard, not held by a thousand bands of old
habit that back in Newbern would have restrained them. Lacking these,
they had rushed to that wild contact like two charged clouds, and
everything was changed by that moment's surrender to some force beyond
their relaxed wills. Something between them had not been, now it was;
something compelling; something that had, for its victory, needed only
that they confront each other, not considering, not resisting, biddable.
In his arms she had cried: "But how did we know--how did we know?"
He had found no answer. Holding her fiercely as he did, it seemed enough
that they did know. He had surrendered, but could not reason--was even
incurious.
At the last she had said: "But if it shouldn't be true; if it's only
because we're both worn down and saw someone from home. Suppose it's
mere--"
She had broken off to thump his shoulder in reassurance, to cling more
abjectly. It was then she had wept, shakingly, in a vast impatience with
herself for trying to reason.
"It is true! It is true--it's true, it's true!" she had told him with
piteous vehemence, then wilted again to his support, one hand stroking
his dusty cheek.
When the command had come down the line she seemed about to fall, but
braced herself with new strength from some hidden source. When he
released her she stood erect, regarding him with something of the
twisted, humorous quirk about her lips that for an instant brought her
back to him as the little girl of long ago. Not until then had he been
able to picture her as Patricia Whipple. Then he saw. Her smile became
surer.
"You've gone and spoiled the whole war for me!" she called to him.
* * * * *
The war, too, had been spoiled for Private Cowan. He was unable to keep
his mind on it. Of the Second Battle of the Marne he was to remember
little worth telling.
Two nights later they came to rest in the woods back of St. Eugene, in
the little valley of the Surmelin, that gateway to Paris from the
farthest point of the second German drive. It was a valley shining with
the gold of little wheat fields, crimson-specked with poppies. It
recalled to Private Cowan merely the farmland rolling away from that old
house of red brick where he had gone one day with Sharon
Whipple--yesterday it might have been. Even the winding creek--though
the French called theirs a river--was like the other creek, its course
marked by a tangle of shrubs and small growths; and the sides of the
valley were flanked familiarly with stony ridges sparsely covered with
second-growth timber. Newbern, he kept thinking, would lie four miles
beyond that longest ridge, and down that yellow road Sharon Whipple
might soon be driving his creaking, weathered buggy and the gaunt roan.
The buggy would sag to one side and Sharon would be sitting
"slaunchwise," as he called it. Over the ridge, at Newbern's edge, would
be the bony little girl who was so funny and willful.
They moved forward to the south bank of the Marne. Beyond that
fifty-yard stream lay the enemy, reported now to be stacking up drive
impedimenta. The reports bored Private Cowan. He wished they would hurry
the thing through. He had other matters in hand. A woman clothed with
the sun, and under her feet the moon, and upon her head a crown of--he
could not make the crown of stars seem right. She was crowned with a
nurse's cap, rusty hair showing beneath, and below this her wan,
wistful, eager face, the eyes half shutting in vain attempts to reason.
The face would be drawn by some inner torment; then its tortured lines
melt to a smile of sure conviction. But she was clothed with the sun,
and the moon was under her feet. So much he could make seem true.
The dark of a certain night fell on the waiting regiment. Crickets
sounded their note, a few silent birds winged furtively overhead.
Rolling kitchens brought up the one hot meal of the day, to be taken to
the front by carrying parties. Company commanders made a last
reconnaissance of their positions. For Private Cowan it was a moment of
double waiting. Waiting for battle was now secondary. In a tiny slit
trench on the forward edge of a railway embankment Private Brennon
remarked upon the locomotion of the foreign frog.
"Will you look at 'em walk!" said Spike. "Just like an animal! Don't
they ever learn to hop like regular gorfs?"
Said Private Cowan: "I suppose you saw that girl back there the other
day?"
"Me and the regiment," said Spike, and chewed gum discreetly.
"She's a girl from back home. Funny! I'd never taken much notice of her
before."
"You took a-plenty back there. You've raised your average awful high.
I'll say it!"
"I hardly knew what I was doing."
"Didn't you? We did!"
"Since then sometimes I forget what we're here for."
"Don't worry, kid! You'll be told."
"It's funny how things happen that you never expected, but afterward you
see it was natural as anything."
* * * * *
At midnight the quiet sky split redly asunder. German guns began to feel
a way to Paris. The earth rocked in a gentle rhythm under a rain of
shells. Shrapnel and gas lent vivacity to the assault. Guns to their
utmost reach swept the little valley like a Titan's sickle. Private
Cowan nestled his cheek against the earthen side of his little slit
trench and tried to remember what she had worn that last night in
Newbern. Something glistening, warm in colour, like ripe fruit; and a
rusty braid bound her head. She had watched, doubtfully, to see if
people were not impatient at her talk. A rattlepate, old Sharon called
her. She was something else now; some curious sort of woman, older, not
afraid. She wouldn't care any more if people were impatient.
At four o'clock of that morning the bombardment of the front line gave
way to a rolling barrage. Close behind this, hugging it, as the men
said, came gray waves of the enemy. It was quieter after the barrage had
passed: only the tack-tack of machine guns and the clash of meeting
bayonets.
"Going to have some rough stuff," said Private Brennon.
For a long time then Private Cowan was so engrossed with the routine of
his present loose trade that the name of Whipple seemed to have no room
in his mind. For four hours he had held a cold rifle and thought. Now
the gun was hot, its bayonet wet, and he thought not at all. When it was
over he was one of fifty-two men left of his company that had numbered
two hundred and fifty-one. But his own uniform would still be clean of
wound chevrons.
Two divisions of German shock troops had broken against a regiment of
American fighting men.
"I don't like fighting any more," said Private Cowan.
"Pushed 'em across the crick," said Private Brennon. "Now we chase 'em!"
So they joined the chase and fought again at Jaulgonne, where it rained
for three days and nights, and Private Cowan considered his life in
danger because he caught cold; it might develop into pneumonia. He
didn't want to get sick and die--not now. It had not, of late, occurred
to him that he would be in any danger save from sickness. But he threw
off the menacing cold and was fit for the big battle at Fismes,
stubbornly pronounced "Fissims" by Private Brennon, after repeated
corrections.
Private Cowan thought now, when not actually engaged at his loose trade,
of his brother. He wished the boy could have been with him. He would
have learned something. He would have learned that you feel differently
about a country if once you fight for it. His country had been only a
name; he had merely ached to fight. Now he hated fighting; words could
never tell how he loathed it; but his country had become more than a
name. He would fight again for that. He wished Merle could have had this
new feeling about his country.
It was before Fismes, being out where he had no call to be, and after
winning a finish fight with a strangely staring spectacled foe, that he
stumbled across the inert form of Private Brennon, who must also have
gone where he had no call to go. He leaned over him. Spike's mask was
broken, but half adjusted. He shouldered the burden, grunting as he did
so, angered by the weight of it. He was irritated, too, by men who were
firing at him, but his greater resentment was for Spike's unreasonable
mass.
"You son of a gun--hog fat! Overweight, that's what you are! You'll
never make a hundred and thirty-three again, not you! Gee, gosh, a light
heavyweight, that's what you are!"
He complained to the unhearing Spike all the way back to a dressing
station, though twice refusing help to carry his load.
"Mustard gas," said the surgeon.
He was back there when Spike on his stretcher came violently to life.
"What a dark night!" said Spike between two of the spasms that wrenched
him. "Can't see your hand before your face!"
"Say, you're hog fat!" grumbled Private Cowan. "You weigh a ton!"
"It's dark, but it feels light--it's warm."
Private Cowan leaned to shield the sun from Spike's garbled face.
"Sure it's dark!" said he.
"Can't see your hand before your face!"
Spike was holding up a hand, thumb and fingers widely spread, moving it
before his sightless eyes.
"You got to go back. You're too fat to be up here."
He rested his hand on Spike's forehead but withdrew it quickly when
Spike winced.
He went on with the war; and the war went on.
* * * * *
"You would never guess," wrote Winona, "who was brought to this base
hospital last week. It was the Mr. Brennon I wrote you of, Mr. Edward
Brennon, the friend of Wilbur's who went with him from Newbern. He is
blind from gas, poor thing! Our head surgeon knew him. It seems he is
one of the prettiest lightweights the head surgeon ever saw in action, a
two-handed fighter with a good right and a good left. These are terms
used in the sport of boxing.
"Of course he knows he is blind, but at first he thought he was
only in the dark. Wilbur had told him of me. The most curious
misunderstanding--he is positive he once saw me at home. Says I am the
prettiest thing he ever looked at, and don't I remember coming into the
post office one day in a white dress and white shoes and a blue parasol
and getting some mail and going out to a motor where some people waited
for me? The foolish thing insists I have blue eyes and light brown hair
and I was smiling when I looked at him in passing; not smiling at him,
of course, but from something the people in the car had said; and I had
one glove off and carried the other with the blue sunshade. And I think
he means a girl from Rochester that visited the Hendricks, those mill
people, summer before last. She was pretty enough, in a girlish way, but
not at all my type. But I can't convince Edward it was not I he saw. I
have given up trying. What harm in letting him think so? He says,
anyway, he would know I am beautiful, because he can feel it even if I
come into the room. Did you ever hear such talk? But I am looking a lot
better, in spite of all I have been through.
"I had a week in Paris last month, and bought some clothes, a real Paris
dress and things." You would not know me in the new outfit. The skirt is
of rather a daring shortness, but such is the mode now, and I am told it
becomes me. Poor Edward, he is so patient, except for spells when he
seems to go mad with realizing his plight. He is still a man. His
expression is forceful. He doesn't smoke, and warns me against it,
though the few cigarettes I allow myself are a precious relief. But I
have promised him to give up the habit when the war is over. He is a
strong man, but helpless. He still believes I am the pretty thing he saw
in the post office. The skirt is pleated, light summer stuff, and falls
in a straight line. Of course I have the shoes and stockings that go
with it."
"There!" exploded the judge. "Taking up with prize fighters--traipsing
round in a regular French dress, looking like something she's not
supposed to be!"
"Lysander!" rebuked his wife hotly.
"He tells me lots about Wilbur," continued the letter. "He hints that
the boy is in love, but will say nothing definite. Men are so
close-mouthed. I hope our boy doesn't marry some little French anybody.
His face is not exactly pleasant to look upon for the time being, but he
has a very winning personality."
"Who's she mean that for?" demanded the Judge, truculently. "The Cowan
boy?"