The boys walked slowly back, picking their way as well as they could in the darkness, occasionally taking to the zig-zag trenches when the surface paths were too obscure. Everywhere men were sleeping, rolled up in their blankets and lying uncomfortably along the bottom of the trenches or out on the ground under the stars. The boys did not talk. Zaidos was busy thinking of the present, with all its tragic incidents, and occasionally a funny happening to lighten the gloom. He thought of Helen, and wondered how her well-beloved patient was progressing. He had a sort of “hunch” as the fellows at school used to say, that Helen was a happy girl, and certainly, if the man was conscious at all, he was happy, too.
About four hundred yards from the lines they found the farm-house to which they had been sent. It was practically a ruin. The roof was gone, excepting over one room where a fire burned in a big fireplace, and where a great kettle swung on a heavy chain. This room had had one side blown out of it, so it was not much better off except in the matter of a rainstorm, than the other rooms that had four sides but no ceilings. It was too open to the weather for much use, however, and the small group of soldiers present were quartered in a cellar close by.
A young sentinel showed Zaidos and Velo the way down, and they rolled up in their blankets and tried to sleep. It was a difficult thing to do. Zaidos found that the steady tramping and kneeling of the day and evening had made his leg, so recently healed, ache badly. It throbbed and he turned and twisted in an effort to find a comfortable position.
Velo’s head ached splittingly, and he lay staring into the darkness, keeping company ever with the evil thoughts in his heart. He slept finally, however, and did not awake until Zaidos shook him by the shoulder and told him it was time for breakfast. The three-sided room with the fireplace had been turned into a kitchen, and the cooks were busy there when the boys went over. The meal tasted good, and although the coffee was thick and muddy, the boys partook of it eagerly. It was at least hot and sweet.
Velo gritted his teeth with exasperation as Zaidos strolled out and at once spoke to a soldier who sat by the door with a couple of letters and papers in his lap. It was so exactly like Zaidos to get acquainted without a moment’s delay. He smiled at the soldier, and in reply the young fellow made a place for him on the bench.
“Sit down, won’t you?” he said. “Mail has come, and I got more than my share.”
“Glad you fared well,” said Zaidos, taking the offered seat. “I see you have a paper. May I look at it?”
“Certainly!” said the soldier. “There is nothing in it. The war news is so censored over home now that you can’t get anything much out of the papers. I like ’em because I can read the home advertisements, and see notices of people I know, and watch what’s playing at the theatres. Makes me forget this rotten hole for awhile.”
“That’s so,” agreed Zaidos. “But just think how crazy all the people at home must be all the while to hear from you fellows at the front.”
“I think they are,” agreed the soldier. “I have a brother in France, too, and father has just sent me a letter from him. It’s fun to compare experiences. Want to read it? You may if you care to.”
“Of course I’d like to!” said Zaidos with his ready friendliness. “There is no one to write to me anywhere except some schoolmates over in America, and I don’t suppose I will hear from them for months.” He took the closely written sheets of thin paper, and read the letter, appreciating the spirit in which it was offered him.
“My dear Father,” it ran. “I received your letter and note last night, and Auntie’s parcel the night before. Thank you both very much for same. It is good of you to us both, but do not spend too much money. Hard times are coming on, I imagine. The kippers were grand. Six of us had a great tea on them in the wine cellar of a shattered farm-house where we are for four nights after four days in the trenches. Then we go back to the fighting line for another four days and nights. This place we are at, in the cellar, is a keep with emergency stores and loop holes, and is armored. Twenty-five of us have to keep it at all costs, should the enemy come over the line, which is perhaps four hundred yards away. The bally place is overrun with rats. They run all over your body and head at night, and I have to sleep with my overcoat tucked over my head to prevent them touching the bare skin.
“Up at the trenches, I was four days and nights stationed about sixty yards from the Huns doing sentry on and off day and night the whole time, waiting with bombs and bayonet in case they attempted to take it, and now on return here have done three more night-guards and then no more sleep again hardly for four more nights, when we return to the firing line.
“It is a hard life, isn’t it? For in between, one is sent off on all sorts of fatigues, drawing rations, sand bags, trench boards, etc., etc.
“I must some time see that new Turkey carpet. The only one I see now is sand bags. If there is a big move shortly, which seems more than likely, it may delay our leave as I guess all the troopers would be wanted in that case, but I am looking forward tremendously to seeing you all again.
“Must conclude now, dear father.
“Much love to all from your son,
“DICK.”
“P. S. We dug up some dead Prussian Guards the other day. There has been some great fighting here and may be again. I don’t know what I should do without the candles and matches you send me. They keep me going nicely.
“I have just thought perhaps my letter does not seem very cheerful; so I must tell you we have lots of fun in between the serious parts of the game. Last rest, I had some great French feeds (for about one franc) in a town near by. Got pally with six French gendarmes and hope to see them again when I have another spell off.
“I guess they could take me around the town if I wanted to see the sights. Also at all villages where we stay, I make friends with some of the cottagers, and get lots of coffee and salads and washing done for me. I am getting quite a reputation for finding places to obtain a little meal to vary the Army rations.
“Cigs are best in tins; in boxes they get very damp. Cheer on! Good luck to you.
“DICK.”
Zaidos handed back the letter with a smile.
“Thank you very much,” he said. “That’s certainly a fine letter. It was nice of you to share it with me.”
“That’s all right,” said the boy. “Everyone is glad to read every other fellow’s letter out here, whether he knows anything about the people or not. We get so few letters. The people at home send us candles and matches and kippers, as you see from the letter, and they send lots of cigarettes to my brother. I don’t smoke. They send us paper and envelopes, too. You know all our letters are opened, don’t you? I don’t see that it makes much difference. I’ve always thought that I could see how I could write a pretty innocent looking letter if I was a spy.
“They have had a lot of trouble with spies at Verdun, where my brother is. Why, would you believe it, the Germans have come right inside the French and English lines in broad daylight to do their spying! One bold ruse they worked just once was to rig up one of their automobiles to look like our ambulances. That car carried six Germans, all dressed as English soldiers, and once inside our lines they went dashing around as aids and orderlies.
“All went well with them, they had seen the whole layout and gone down to the very last trench, when one of them stumbled and out came a thoughtless ‘Mein Gott!’ for he thought he had broken his ankle. Now of course that would have been a catastrophe indeed, but so was that slip into the German tongue. A kindly Providence saw to it that an alert Tommy had heard, and in a trice those six make-believe English soldiers had been rounded up and were on their way to headquarters. Next morning there was a sunrise party, for those Germans must be taught it isn’t ever healthy for them inside our lines.”
“Indeed they must!” agreed Zaidos heartily.
“We have got to beat them in the end,” said the English soldier with the quiet sureness that has so often helped England to victory. “But they are sure as sure that they will beat us, so they keep hammering away and they will keep it up just as long as their men last.”
As if in answer to his last statement a shell struck the earth twenty yards away, and exploded. Another followed, and fell in almost exactly the same place.
“See that?” said the Englishman. “Two days ago one of our best guns was there where those shells have fallen. How did they know just where it was stationed? We had not fired it. And it was ambushed from the airships. Pretty rotten work, eh?”
As he spoke, a snapping, long-drawn snarl punctuated by deeper roars told that the rapid-fire guns and the howitzers were awake along the English lines. A stir of preparation passed like a wave over the resting and lounging soldiers. Two great Zeppelins appeared overhead. They wheeled closer and closer. Even at so great a distance, the roar of their engines was terrific.
Zaidos turned and shook hands warmly with the soldier whose letter he had shared.
“Good-bye, and good luck!” he said heartily. “Hope we will meet some day again.”
“Good-bye to you!” cried his new friend.
Zaidos, calling Velo, jumped into the trench and ran along its uneven zigzags, on and on, the roar of battle sounding ever louder, until he reached the cook house, and turning into the arm leading to the First Aid Station, he raced into the room and reported to the doctor.
Velo was at his heels. Once more the evil in Velo’s soul was crying to him, shouting to him, “This is your day—this is your day!”
“I won’t forget,” commented Velo aloud; and Zaidos said “What?”
They buckled on their aid kits, seeing that they were supplied with everything. They wore orderly kits now. They contained chloroform in a case, a roll of wire gauze, a long rubber bandage, and a tin which contained vials of hypodermic solutions. These were only for the use of the field surgeons whom they chanced to meet and who frequently had to call on the Red Cross orderlies and stretcher bearers for supplies. Then in the next compartment was the hypodermic syringe, and beside it a flask for aromatic spirits of ammonia. There was a knife and a pair of surgical scissors. After having dropped his scissors a dozen times or so, Zaidos had taken the precaution to tie them to his pouch with a long, fine string.
There was gauze, eight packets of it; four first aid packets complete, six bandages, and two diagnosis tags and pencils. When there was time, it was sometimes advisable to tag the wounded men. It made them get moved quicker when the patient finally reached the operating room.
A spool of adhesive plaster was perhaps one of the most useful things included, and there were pins and ligatures, and a small pocket lantern which Zaidos at least had never had occasion to use.
Velo looked carefully at his own kit. He did not intend to be caught in any carelessness or neglect of duty. He had cast aside as unsafe the idea of skipping away. It was more dangerous than the falling shells. He, like many another, had become calloused. On battlefields men move with as much of a sense of security as though they were invisible. It is not so much that they are not afraid as that they grow into a feeling that the dreadful din, the rattle and bang and dirt and blood, the anguish of men and horses, the distorted and ghastly deaths, will pass them by. The whine of bullets, and the spiteful snarl of exploding shells seems as much an incident as the tin rainfall and the wooden thunder on the stage.
Zaidos noticed this, and felt it himself. He saw men go singing along the trenches to their death, singing love songs and tender little ballads that had to do with flowers and larks and English lanes in May. And most of all he noticed that the face of every wounded man held a look of surprise in greater or less degree; of amazement, as though the outraged body said, “Has this thing come to me? Impossible!” The look was on the dead lying sprawled and twisted in the last silent paralysis of humanity. And although the dead and dying and wounded lay like warnings of a coming fate, although men tossed and reared grotesquely, and shattered horses screamed shrilly in throes of blind agony, the unhurt thousands moved on or lay in their trenches giving fire for fire, death for death without a quiver of concern.
Out into the worst of it went the boys together, Zaidos filled with the high courage of one who does his duty whole-heartedly, and is too busy with the task to wonder at his own fate, Velo with the unconcern of the panther who creeps sure-footedly along the crumbling ledge after his prey. With the noise, the sights and confusion of battle, a kind of madness grew in Velo. The words “To-day, to-day, to-day!” made a sort of song within him. He had all the time in the world. He liked to see Zaidos working, working, tiring himself out. It didn’t really matter when he put Zaidos out. He only knew that sooner or later he would do it. He had become a criminal. The evil had wrecked his soul.
The boys worked with furious zeal. When the final toll of this dreadful war is taken, high up on the lists of fame, supreme in the immortal and shining roster of the saints, should stand the names of the men and women of the Red Cross. The zeal of fighting could not uphold them. The lust of battle could not inflame their courage. It was theirs to walk unguarded in the red rain of death, to kneel where the shells fell thickest, to pass through the line of deadly fire with their pitiful burdens.
Doing only good, bringing relief and rescue, they, too, have fallen, hundreds of them, victims of a struggle in which they had no active part.
Zaidos and that dark shadow, Velo, knelt beside a wounded soldier, and strove to save his life, while a black robed priest knelt beside the conscious man. He made the responses of his Church clearly and evenly. He listened while the chaplain commended him to the mercy of God. With an even voice he gave his name and sent a last passionately loving message to one he loved. Then while the boys still doggedly strove to stay his passing, he began to speak. His voice changed to the shrill, clear tones of childhood. He forgot the sonorous Latin of a moment past. He looked up and folded his hands.
“Mary, Mother, meek and mild,
Hear me, then a little child—”
He went on with the childish prayer. Velo stood up. Zaidos, kneeling, shook his head, waited until the voice trailed into silence, and folded his kit. They had come too late. The priest stood for a moment in prayer. The boys moved on, but Zaidos looked back. He was just in time to see the priest, with that strange look of wonder dawning on his face, sink slowly to his knees, and droop across the dead man’s breast. A bullet was in his heart.
“I wish it would end,” cried Zaidos passionately.
Velo smiled.
“Don’t do that!” cried Zaidos wildly. “You are not half tending to your work. Get busy with this man here.” He knelt beside a soldier as he spoke, and tried to change his position so he could tie up a gushing wound. Zaidos, who had done all the heavy work, was almost exhausted. His hands trembled a little. Time had rushed by, or else it had stood perfectly still since the first shot split the morning stillness. He had not eaten; he couldn’t. On one of the trips with the heavy stretcher the doctor had given him something in a glass to take, but he had put it down for a moment, and Velo had spilled it. It had not seemed worth while to ask for more.
The battle roared around them. The enemy had pressed through the first wire entanglement, and a terrific hand-to-hand conflict was in progress. Then men charged with bayonet on gun in the right hand, a short, keen knife in their teeth, and on their left hands a band set with spiked steel knuckles. They leaped into the trenches, struck once with the bayonet, let the musket go, and continued the fight with knife and knuckles. The boys seemed to be the center of a horrible whirlpool or eddy of fighting.
“Give me a bandage!” screamed Zaidos.
Velo, all unconscious of the battle about, stood looking down at Zaidos. His bloodshot eyes were narrowed to slits, his lips drawn back in a wolfish snarl. In his hand was a revolver. He leaned forward a little. He spoke, but in the din Zaidos could not hear his words. He could read the twisting lips, however.
“I’ve got the papers!” was what he said. He took careful, open aim with the revolver, and before Zaidos could move or spring, he fired straight at Zaidos’ face!
Then he stood looking at the fallen boy. Zaidos lay on his back, arms spread wide, knees partly bent under him. Somehow he looked very young. Velo, once more conscious of the roar of guns, looked about him. The battle raged madly. As if drawn by a magnet, his gaze traveled back to the face of his victim. Sure enough, he had killed him. Zaidos was out of his way forever. He felt in his blouse where the precious papers were, then, moved by some strange impulse, he took them out, and held them up before the unseeing eyes of his cousin.
“All here; all here!” he said thickly. “Now I’m Zaidos; I’m head of the house!” Still holding the papers in his hand, he threw the revolver far from him. It had done its work. He nodded to Zaidos. “All here!” he repeated, fingering the pocket. “I’m—”
Something or someone seemed to strike him a violent blow in the back. It surprised him. He turned to see the offender. There was no one near. The tide of battle had swept past. He looked inquiringly at Zaidos, and idly dropped the papers on the ground, as he put a hand to his breast. Suddenly he lost interest in everything but the cause of the blow. He wondered what in the world had hit him. Not a bullet. Surely a bullet did not make you feel so numb and queer! He balanced back and forth as though he was walking a tight rope. Still staring at Zaidos, and still pressing a hand to his chest, he went slowly, very slowly, to his knees.
“That’s strange,” he said to Zaidos. Then without warning, he coughed. It tore, and ripped, and rent him with mortal agony. He screamed aloud. He clutched with both hands at his breast, screamed, and screamed and screamed, and so went slowly down and down, a million miles into blackness, and lay without further motion, his head against Zaidos’ knee.