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fellow... a sort of debauched baby, he was, who went seeking his enemy in the clouds. What other age could
have produced such a figure? That was one of the things about this war; it took a little fellow from a little
town, gave him an air and a swagger, a life like a movie-film,--and then a death like the rebel angels.
A man like Gerhardt, for instance, had always lived in a more or less rose-colored world; he belonged over
here, really. How could he know what hard moulds and crusts the big guns had broken open on the other side
of the sea? Who could ever make him understand how far it was from the strawberry bed and the glass cage in
the bank, to the sky-roads over Verdure?
By three o'clock the rain had stopped. Claude and Hicks set off again, accompanied by one of the gun team
who was going back to get help for their tractor. As it began to grow light, the two Americans wondered more
and more at the extremely youthful appearance of their companion. When they stopped at a shell-hole and
washed the mud from their faces, the English boy, with his helmet off and the weather stains removed,
showed a countenance of adolescent freshness, almost girlish; cheeks like pink apples, yellow curls above his
forehead, long, soft lashes.
"You haven't been over very long, have you?" Claude asked in a fatherly tone, as they took the road again.
"I came out in 'sixteen. I was formerly in the infantry."
The Americans liked to hear him talk; he spoke very quickly, in a high, piping voice.
"How did you come to change?"
"Oh, I belonged to one of the Pal Battalions, and we got cut to pieces. When I came out of hospital, I thought
I'd try another branch of the service, seeing my pals were gone."
"Now, just what is a Pal Battalion?" drawled Hicks. He hated all English words he didn't understand, though
he didn't mind French ones in the least.
"Fellows who signed up together from school," the lad piped.
Hicks glanced at Claude. They both thought this boy ought to be in school for some time yet, and wondered
One of Ours 151
what he looked like when he first came over.
"And you got cut up, you say?" he asked sympathetically.
"Yes, on the Somme. We had rotten luck. We were sent over to take a trench and couldn't. We didn't even get
to the wire. The Hun was so well prepared that time, we couldn't manage it. We went over a thousand, and we
came back seventeen."
"A hundred and seventeen?"
"No, seventeen."
Hicks whistled and again exchanged looks with Claude. They could neither of them doubt him. There was
something very unpleasant about the idea of a thousand fresh-faced schoolboys being sent out against the
guns. "It must have been a fool order," he commented. "Suppose there was some mistake at Headquarters?"
"Oh, no, Headquarters knew what it was about! We'd have taken it, if we'd had any sort of luck. But the Hun
happened to be full of fight. His machine guns did for us."
"You were hit yourself?" Claude asked him.
"In the leg. He was popping away at me all the while, but I wriggled back on my tummy. When I came out of
the hospital my leg wasn't strong, and there's less marching in the artillery.
"I should think you'd have had about enough."
"Oh, a fellow can't stay out after all his chums have been killed! He'd think about it all the time, you know,"
the boy replied in his clear treble.
Claude and Hicks got into Headquarters just as the cooks were turning out to build their fires. One of the
Corporals took them to the officers' bath,--a shed with big tin tubs, and carried away their uniforms to dry
them in the kitchen. It would be an hour before the officers would be about, he said, and in the meantime he
would manage to get clean shirts and socks for them.
"Say, Lieutenant," Hicks brought out as he was rubbing himself down with a real bath towel, "I don't want to
hear any more about those Pal Battalions, do you? It gets my goat. So long as we were going to get into this,
we might have been a little more previous. I hate to feel small." "Guess we'll have to take our medicine,"
Claude said dryly, "There wasn't anywhere to duck, was there? I felt like it. Nice little kid. I don't believe
American boys ever seem as young as that."
"Why, if you met him anywhere else, you'd be afraid of using bad words before him, he's so pretty! What's the
use of sending an orphan asylum out to be slaughtered? I can't see it," grumbled the fat sergeant. "Well, it's
their business. I'm not going to let it spoil my breakfast. Suppose we'll draw ham and eggs, Lieutenant?"
X
After breakfast Claude reported to Headquarters and talked with one of the staff Majors. He was told he
would have to wait until tomorrow to see Colonel James, who had been called to Paris for a general
conference. He had left in his car at four that morning, in response to a telephone message.
"There's not much to do here, by way of amusement," said the Major. "A movie show tonight, and you can get
anything you want at the estaminet,--the one on the square, opposite the English tank, is the best. There are a
One of Ours 152
couple of nice Frenchwomen in the Red Cross barrack, up on the hill, in the old convent garden. They try to
look out for the civilian population, and we're on good terms with them. We get their supplies through with
our own, and the quartermaster has orders to help them when they run short. You might go up and call on
them. They speak English perfectly."
Claude asked whether he could walk in on them without any kind of introduction.
"Oh, yes, they're used to us! I'll give you a card to Mlle. Olive, though. She's a particular friend of mine. There
you are: 'Mlle. Olive de Courcy, introducing, etc.' And, you understand," here he glanced up and looked
Claude over from head to foot, "she's a perfect lady."
Even with an introduction, Claude felt some hesitancy about presenting himself to these ladies. Perhaps they
didn't like Americans; he was always afraid of meeting French people who didn't. It was the same way with
most of the fellows in his battalion, he had found; they were terribly afraid of being disliked. And the moment
they felt they were disliked, they hastened to behave as badly as possible, in order to deserve it; then they
didn't feel that they had been taken in--the worst feeling a doughboy could possibly have!
Claude thought he would stroll about to look at the town a little. It had been taken by the Germans in the
autumn of 1914, after their retreat from the Marne, and they had held it until about a year ago, when it was
retaken by the English and the Chasseurs d'Alpins. They had been able to reduce it and to drive the Germans
out, only by battering it down with artillery; not one building remained standing. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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