diff options
Diffstat (limited to '44185-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 44185-0.txt | 3895 |
1 files changed, 3895 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/44185-0.txt b/44185-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..62672fe --- /dev/null +++ b/44185-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3895 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44185 *** + + THE FIGHTING STARKLEYS + + + + + _STORIES BY_ + + _Captain + Theodore Goodridge Roberts_ + + + _Comrades of the Trails_ _$1.50_ + _The Red Feathers_ _1.65_ + _Flying Plover_ _1.35_ + _The Fighting Starkleys_ _1.65_ + + + _THE PAGE COMPANY_ + _53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass._ + + + + + [Illustration: "HE SAW HIS BOMB BURST BESIDE THE STUMP OF + CHIMNEY." (_See page 194_)] + + + + + _The_ FIGHTING + STARKLEYS + + _Or, THE TEST OF COURAGE_ + + BY + CAPTAIN THEODORE GOODRIDGE ROBERTS + Author of + "Comrades of the Trails," "Red Feathers," "Flying Plover," etc. + + ILLUSTRATED BY + GEORGE VARIAN + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON + THE PAGE COMPANY + MDCCCCXXII + + + + + _Copyright, 1920_, + BY PERRY MASON COMPANY + + _Copyright, 1922_, + BY THE PAGE COMPANY + + _All rights reserved_ + + + Made in U.S.A. + + First Impression, April, 1922 + + + PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY + BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE CALL COMES TO BEAVER DAM 1 + + II. JIM HAMMOND DOES NOT RETURN TO DUTY 29 + + III. THE VETERANS OF OTHER DAYS 56 + + IV. PRIVATE SILL ACTS 80 + + V. PETER'S ROOM IS AGAIN OCCUPIED 109 + + VI. DAVE HAMMER GETS HIS COMMISSION 131 + + VII. PETER WRITES A LETTER 155 + + VIII. THE 26TH "MOPS UP" 178 + + IX. FRANK SACOBIE OBJECTS 203 + + X. DICK OBLIGES HIS FRIEND 225 + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + "HE SAW HIS BOMB BURST BESIDE THE STUMP + OF CHIMNEY" (_See page 194_) _Frontispiece_ + + "'I CAN'T MAKE YOU OUT,' SAID THE SERGEANT" 23 + + "'I'M HIT, BOYS!' HE SAID" 50 + + "'HERE'S ONE OF THEM, SIR; AND THERE'S + MORE COMING,' SAID THE MAN OF MUD" 150 + + "STANDING IN THE DOORWAY OF THE COMPARTMENT, + DICK SALUTED" 240 + + + + + =The Fighting Starkleys= + + + CHAPTER I + + THE CALL COMES TO BEAVER DAM + + +BEAVER DAM was a farm; but long before the day of John Starkley and his +wife, Constance Emma, who lived there with their five children, the name +had been applied to and accepted by a whole settlement of farms, a +gristmill, a meetinghouse, a school and a general store. John Starkley +was a farmer, with no other source of income than his wide fields. +Considering those facts, it is not to be wondered at that his three boys +and two girls had been bred to an active, early-rising, robust way of +life from their early childhood. + +The original human habitation of Beaver Dam had been built of pine logs +by John's grandfather, one Maj. Richard Starkley, and his friend and +henchman, Two-Blanket Sacobie, a Malecite sportsman from the big river. +The present house had been built only a few years before the major's +death, by his sons, Peter and Richard, and a son of old Two-Blanket, of +hand-hewn timbers, whipsawn boards and planks and hand-split shingles. +But the older house still stands solid and true and weather-tight on its +original ground; its lower floor is a tool house and general lumber room +and its upper floor a granary. + +Soon after the completion of the new house the major's son Richard left +Beaver Dam for the town of St. John, where he found employment with a +firm of merchants trading to London, Spain and the West Indies. He was +sent to Jamaica; and from that tropic isle he sent home, at one time and +another, cases of guava jelly and "hot stuff," a sawfish's saw and half +a dozen letters. From Jamaica he was promoted to London; and as the +years passed, his letters became less and less frequent until they at +last ceased entirely. So much for the major's son Richard. + +Peter stuck to the farm. He was a big, kind-hearted, quiet fellow, a +hard worker, a great reader of his father's few books. He married the +beautiful daughter of a Scotchman who had recently settled at Green +Hill--a Scotchman with a red beard, a pedigree longer and a deal more +twisted than the road to Fredericton, a mastery of the bagpipes, two +hundred acres of wild land and an empty sporran. Of Peter Starkley and +his beautiful wife, Flora, came John, who had his father's steadfastness +and his mother's fire. He went farther afield for his wife than his +father had gone--out to the big river, St. John, and down it many miles +to the sleepy old village and elm-shaded meadows of Gagetown. It was a +long way for a busy young farmer to go courting; but Constance Emma +Garden was worth a thousand longer journeys. + +When Henry, the oldest of the five Starkley children, went to college to +study civil engineering, sixteen-year-old Peter, fourteen-year-old +Flora, twelve-year-old Dick and eight-year-old Emma were at home. Peter, +who was done with school, did a man's work on the farm; he owned a +sorrel mare with a reputation as a trotter, contemplated spending the +next winter in the lumber woods and planned agriculture activities on a +scale and of a kind to astonish his father. + +On a Saturday morning in June Dick and Flora, who were chums, got up +even earlier than usual. They breakfasted by themselves in the summer +kitchen of the silent house, dug earthworms in the rich brown loam of +the garden and, taking their fishing rods from behind the door of the +tool house, set out hurriedly for Frying Pan River. When they were +halfway to the secluded stream they overtook Frank Sacobie, the +great-grandson of Two-Blanket Sacobie, who had helped Maj. Richard +Starkley build his house. + +The young Malecite's black eyes lighted pleasantly at sight of his +friends, but his lips remained unsmiling. He was a very thin, +small-boned, long-legged boy of thirteen, clothed in a checked cotton +shirt and the cut-down trousers of an older Sacobie. He did not wear a +hat. His straight black hair lay in a fringe just above his eyebrows. + +"Didn't you bring any worms?" asked Flora. + +"Nope," said Frank. + +"Or any luncheon?" asked Dick. + +"Nope," said Frank. "You two always fetch plenty worms and plenty grub." + +He led the way along a lumbermen's winter road, and at last they reached +the Frying Pan. Baiting their hooks, they fell to fishing. + +The trout were plentiful in the Frying Pan; they bit, they yanked, they +pulled. The three young fishers heaved them ashore by main force and +awkwardness--as folk say round Beaver Dam--and by noon the three had as +many fish as they could comfortably carry. So, winding up their lines, +they washed their hands and sat down in a sunny place to lunch. All were +wet, for all had fallen into the river more than once. Dick had his left +hand in a bandage by that time; he had embedded a hook in the fleshy +part of it and had dug it out with his jack-knife. + +"That's nothing! Just a scratch!" he said in the best offhand military +manner. "My great-grandfather once had a Russian bayonet put clean +through his shoulder." + +"Guess my great-gran'father did some fightin', too," remarked Frank +Sacobie. "He was a big chief on the big river." + +"No, he didn't," said Dick. "He was a chief, all right; but there wasn't +any fighting on the river in his day. He was Two-Blanket Sacobie. I've +read all about him in my great-grandfather's diary." + +"Don't mean him," said Frank. "I mean Two-Blanket's father's father's +father. His name was just Sacobie, and his mark was a red canoe. He +fought the English and the Mohawks. All the Malecites on the big river +were his people, and he was very good friend to the big French +governors. The King of France sent him a big medal. My gran'mother told +me all about it once. She said how Two-Blanket got his name because he +sold that medal to a white man on the Oromocto for two blankets; and +that was a long time ago--way back before your great-gran'father ever +come to this country. I tell you, if I want to be a soldier, I bet I +would make as good a soldier as Dick." + +"Bet you wouldn't," retorted Dick. + +"All right. I'm goin' to be a soldier--and you'll see. I'm going into +the militia as soon as I'm old enough." + +"So'm I." + +Flora laughed. "Who will you fight with you when you are in the +militia?" she asked. + +The boys exchanged embarrassed glances. + +"I guess the militia could fight all right if it had to," said Dick. + +"Of course it could," said Frank. + + * * * * * + +For four years after the conversation that took place on the bank of +Frying Pan River Flora and Dick and the rest of the Starkley family +except Henry lived on in the quiet way of the folk at Beaver Dam. The +younger children continued to go daily to school at the Crossroads, to +take part in the lighter tasks of farm and house, to play and fish and +argue and dream great things of the future. + +Peter spent each winter in the lumber woods. In his nineteenth year he +invested his savings in a deserted farm near Beaver Dam and passed the +greater part of the summer of 1913 in repairing the old barn on his new +possession, cutting bushes out of the old meadows, mending fences and +clearing land. + +That was only a beginning he said. He would own a thousand acres before +long and show the people of Beaver Dam--including his own father--how to +farm on a big scale and in an up-to-date manner. + +Henry, the eldest Starkley of this generation, had completed his course +at college and got a job with a railway survey party in the upper valley +of the big river. He proved himself to be a good engineer. + +In the spring of 1914 Frank Sacobie, now seventeen years of age, left +Beaver Dam to work in a sawmill on the big river. Peter Starkley +invested his winter's wages in another mare, two cows and a ton of +chemical fertilizers. He ploughed ten acres of his meadows and sowed +five with oats, four to buckwheat, and planted one to potatoes. The +whole family was thrilled with the romance of his undertaking. His +father helped him to put in his crop; and Dick and Flora found the +attractions of Peter's farm irresistible. The very tasks that they +classed as work at home they considered as play when performed at +"Peter's place." In the romantic glow of Peter's agricultural beginning +Dick almost resigned his military ambitions. But those ambitions were +revived by Peter himself; and this is how it happened. + +Peter planned to raise horses, and he felt that the question what class +of horse to devote his energies to was very important. One day late in +June he met a stranger in the village of Stanley, and they "talked +horse." The stranger advised Peter to visit King's County if he wanted +knowledge on that subject. + +"Enlist in the cavalry," he said--"the 8th, Princess Louise, New +Brunswick Hussars. That will give you a trip for nothin'--two weeks--and +a dollar a day--and a chance to see every sort of horse that was ever +bred in this province, right there in the regiment. Bring along a horse +of your own, and the government will pay you another dollar a day for +it--and feed it. I do it every year, just for a holiday and a bit of +change." + +It sounded attractive to Peter, and two weeks later he and his black +mare set off for King's County to join the regiment in its training +camp. In his absence Dick and Flora looked after the sorrel mare, his +cows and his farm. Two weeks later Peter and the mare returned; the mare +was a little thinner than of old, and Peter was full of talk of horses +and soldiering. Dick's military ambitions relit in him like an explosion +of gunpowder. + +Then came word of the war to Beaver Dam. + +The folk of Beaver Dam, and of thousands of other rural communities, +were busy with their haying when Canada offered a division to the mother +country, for service in any part of the world. Militia officers posted +through the country, seeking volunteers to cross the ocean and to bear +arms against terrific Germany. + +Peter, now in his twentieth year, wished to join. + +"And what about your new farm and all your great plans?" asked John +Starkley. + +"Dick and I will look after his farm for him," said Flora. "We can +harvest his crops and--" + +Just then she looked at her mother and suddenly became silent. Mrs. +Starkley's face was very white. + +"If the need for men from Canada is great, other divisions will be +called for," said the father. "At present, only one division has been +asked for--and I think that can easily be filled with seasoned +militiamen." + +"Some one drove past the window!" exclaimed Flora. + +The door opened and a young man, in the khaki service uniform of an +officer, entered the room. He halted, removed his cap and grinned +broadly at the astonished family. + +"Henry!" cried Mrs. Starkley, pressing a hand swiftly and covertly to +her side. + +Her husband found nothing to say just then. Dick and Flora and Emma ran +to Henry and began asking questions and examining and fingering his +belt, the leather strapping of his smart riding breeches, even his high, +brown boots and shining spurs. + +"What are you, Henry?" asked Flora. + +"A sapper--an engineer." + +"Are you an officer?" asked Dick. + +"Lieutenant, 1st Field Company, Canadian Engineers--that's what I am. +Hope you approve of my boots." + +"Are you going, Henry?" asked Peter, with a noticeable hitch in his +voice and a curious expression of disappointment and relief in his eyes. + +"Yes, I'm to join my unit at the big mobilization camp in Quebec in ten +days," replied Henry. + +John Starkley put a hand on Peter's shoulders. "Then you will wait, +Peter," he said. + +"You're needed here--and we must keep you as long as we can. One at a +time is enough." + +"I'll wait now, but I will go with the next lot," said Peter. + +Henry had nine days in which to arrange his affairs, and no affairs to +arrange. He was in high spirits and proud of his commission, but he put +on an old tweed suit the next morning and helped with the last of the +haying on the home farm and on Peter's place. When the nine days were +gone he donned his uniform again and drove away to the nearest railway +station with his mother and father and little Emma. He wrote frequent +entertaining letters from the big camp at Valcartier. On the 29th day of +September he embarked at Quebec; the transports gathered in Gaspé Basin +and were joined there by their escort of cruisers; the great fleet put +out to sea--the greatest fleet that had ever crossed the +Atlantic--bearing thirty-three thousand Canadian soldiers to the +battlefields of Europe instead of the twenty thousand that had been +originally promised. + +At Beaver Dam Peter worked harder than ever, but with a look in his eyes +at times that seemed to carry beyond the job in hand. A few weeks ago he +had experienced a pardonable glow of pride and self-satisfaction when +people had pointed him out as the young fellow who had bought the old +Smith place and who was going to farm in a big way; now it seemed to him +that the only man worth pointing out was the man who had enlisted to +fight the swarming legions of Germany. + +He did not invest in any more live stock that fall. He sold all of the +oats and straw that he did not need for the wintering of his two mares +and two cows. He did not look for a job in the lumber woods. His +potatoes were a clean and heavy crop; and he went to Stanley to sell +them. That was early in October. + +The storekeeper there was a man named Hammond, who dealt in farm produce +on a large scale and who shipped to the cities of the province. He +engaged to take Peter's crop at a good price, then talked about the war. +One of his sons, a lieutenant in the militia, had sailed with the first +contingent. They talked of that young man and Henry and others who had +gone. + +"I am off with the next lot," said Peter. + +"That will be soon enough," said the merchant thoughtfully. "My +daughter, Vivia, has been visiting in Fredericton, and she tells me +there is talk of a second division already. Jim says he is going with +the next lot, too. That will leave me without a son at all, but I +haven't the face to try to talk him out of it." + +Peter accepted an invitation to have dinner with the Hammonds. He knew +the other members of the family slightly--Mrs. Hammond, Vivia and Jim. +Jim, who was a year or two older than Peter, was a thickset, +dull-looking young man with a reputation as a shrewd trader. He was his +father's chief assistant in the business. Patrick, the son who had +sailed with the first contingent, had a reputation as a fisherman and +hunter, which meant that he was considered as frivolous and that he had +no standing at all as a business man. Vivia, the daughter, resembled +Patrick rather than Jim. She was about seventeen years old. Peter, who +had not seen her for twelve months, wondered how such a heavy duffer as +Jim Hammond came by such a sister. + +During the meal Peter paid a great deal of attention to everything Vivia +Hammond said, and Vivia did more talking than anyone else at the table; +and yet by the time Peter was on the road for Beaver Dam he could not +remember a dozen words of all the hundreds she had spoken. Likewise, he +attended her with his eyes as faithfully as with his ears; and yet by +the time he was halfway home his mind's picture of her was all gone to +glimmering fragments. The more he concentrated his thoughts upon her the +less clearly could he see her. + +He laughed at himself. He could not remember ever having been in a like +difficulty before. Well, he could afford to laugh, for, after all, he +lived within a reasonable distance of her and could drive over again any +day if his defective memory troubled him seriously. And that is exactly +what he did,--and on the very next day at that,----half believing even +himself that he went to talk about enlisting, and the war in general, +with her heavy brother. He did not see Jim on that occasion, and during +a ten-minutes' interview with Vivia he did not say more than a dozen +words. + +On the 4th of November Peter read in the Fredericton Harvester that +recruiting had begun in the city of St. John for the 26th Infantry +Battalion, a newly authorized unit for overseas service. The family +circle at Beaver Dam sat up late that night. Peter talked excitedly, and +the others listened in silence. Dick's eyes shone in the lamplight. + +Peter drove over to Stanley early the next morning and there took the +train to Fredericton, and from Fredericton to St. John. He felt no +military thrill. Loneliness and homesickness weighed on him +already--loneliness for his people, for the wide home kitchen and bright +sitting-room, for his own fields. + +He reached the big city by the sea after dark. The traffic of the hard +streets, the foggy lights and the heedless, hurrying crowds of people +added bewilderment to his loneliness. With his baggage at his feet, he +stood in the station and gazed miserably around. + +Peter Starkley did not stand there unnoticed. Dozens of the people who +pushed past him eyed him with interest and wondered what he was waiting +for. He was so evidently not of the city. He looked at once rustic and +distinguished. But no one spoke to him until a sergeant in a khaki +service uniform caught sight of him. + +"I can't make you out," said the sergeant, stepping up to him. + + [Illustration: "'I CAN'T MAKE YOU OUT,' SAID THE SERGEANT."] + +"I can place you," he said. "You're a sergeant." + +"Right," returned the other. "And you're from the country. Your big felt +hat tells me so--and your tanned face. But I can see that you're a +person of some importance where you come from." + +Peter blushed. "I am a farmer and a trooper in the 8th Hussars, and I +have come here to enlist for overseas with the new infantry battalion," +he said. + +"That's what I hoped!" exclaimed the sergeant. "Come along with me, lad. +You are for the 26th Canadian Overseas Infantry Battalion." + +The sergeant, whose name was Hammer, was a cheery, friendly fellow. He +was also a very keen soldier and entertained a high opinion of the +military qualities of the new battalion. On reaching the armory of the +local militia regiment, now being used as headquarters of the new unit, +Hammer led Peter straight to the medical officer. The doctor found +nothing the matter with the recruit from Beaver Dam. Then Hammer paraded +him before the adjutant. Peter answered a few questions, took a solemn +oath and signed a paper. + +"Now you're a soldier, a regular soldier," said the sergeant and slapped +him on the back. "Come along now, and in half an hour I'll have you +fitted into a uniform as trim as my own." + +Within a month Peter Starkley had distinguished himself as a steady +soldier; he had attained to the rank of lance corporal, and then of +corporal. His steadiness was largely owing to homesickness. Of his few +intimates the closest was Sergt. Hammer. + +Jim Hammond did not join the regiment until close upon Christmas. He was +found physically fit; and, as a result of a request made by Peter to +Hammer and by the sergeant to Lieut. Scammell, and by the lieutenant to +the adjutant, he became a member of the same platoon as Peter. Not only +that, he became one of Hammer's section, in which Peter was a corporal. + +Peter felt that he should like to be good friends with Jim Hammond, but +he did not give a definite reason even to himself for that wish. Jim, in +his own person, was not attractive to him. Peter felt misgivings when +Jim, within two days of donning his uniform, began to grumble about the +severity of the training. Three days later Dave Hammer, in his official +capacity as a section commander, fell upon Jim Hammond in his official +capacity as a private soldier. Reason and justice, as well as authority, +were with the sergeant. Jim came to Peter that evening. + +"Look a-here, who does Dave Hammer think he is, anyhow?" he asked. + +"I guess he knows who he is," replied Peter. + +"Well, whoever he is," Hammond declared wrathfully, "I won't be bawled +out by him. I guess I'm as good a man as he is--and better." + +"You'll have lots of chances, from now on, to show how good a man you +are. Acting as you did on the route march this afternoon doesn't show +it." + +Hammond's face darkened. + +"Is that so?" he retorted. "Well, I'll tell you now I didn't come +soldiering to be taught my business by you or any other bushwhacker from +Beaver Dam. You got two stripes, I see. I'd have two stars if I took to +licking people's boots the way you do, Peter Starkley." + +Peter bent forward, and his lean face hardened, and his dark eyes +glinted coldly. + +"I don't want to have trouble with you, Jim," he said, and his voice was +no more than a whisper, "but it will happen if you don't look out. I +don't lick any man's boots! If I hear another word like that out of you, +I'll lick something--and that will be you! Do you get me?" + +He looked dangerous. Hammond tried to glare him down, but failed. +Hammond's own eyes wavered. He grunted and turned away. The next morning +he applied for a Christmas pass, which was refused on the ground that +the men who had joined first should be the first to receive passes. He +felt thoroughly ill-used. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + JIM HAMMOND DOES NOT RETURN + TO DUTY + + +PETER STARKLEY got home to Beaver Dam for New Year's Day on a six days' +pass. Jim Hammond had also tried to get a pass, but he had failed. Peter +found his homesickness increased by those six days; but he made every +effort to hide his emotions. He talked bravely of his duties and his +comrades, and especially of Dave Hammer. He said nothing about Jim +Hammond except when questioned, and then as little as possible. + +He polished his buttons and badges every morning and rolled his putties +as if for parade. The smartness of his carriage gave a distinction even +to the unlovely khaki service uniform of a British noncommissioned +officer. He looked like a guardsman and felt like a schoolboy who +dreaded the approaching term. He haunted the barns and stables of the +home farm and of his own place and tramped the snow-laden woods and +blanketed fields. In spite of his efforts to think only of the harsh and +foreign task before him, he dreamed of clearings here and crops there. +The keen, kindly eyes of his parents saw through to his heart. + +One day of the six he spent in the village of Stanley. He called first +at Hammond's store, where he tried to give Mr. Hammond the impression +that he had dropped in casually, but as he had nothing to sell and did +not wish to buy anything he failed to hoodwink the storekeeper. Mr. +Hammond was cordial, but seemed worried. + +He complimented Peter on his promotion and his soldierly appearance. + +"Glad you got home," he said. "Wish Jim could have come along with you, +but he writes as how they won't give him a pass. Seems to me it ain't +more than only fair to let all the boys come home for Christmas or New +Year's." + +"Then there wouldn't be any one left to carry on," said Peter. "They've +fixed it so that those who have been longest on the job get the first +passes; but I guess every one will get home for a few days before we +sail." + +"Jim says the training--the drill and all that--is mighty hard," +continued Mr. Hammond. + +"Some find it so, and some don't," replied Peter awkwardly. "I guess +it's what you might call a matter of taste." + +"Like enough," said the storekeeper, scratching his chin. "It's a matter +of taste--and not to Jim's taste, that's sure." + +Peter felt relieved to see that Mr. Hammond seemed to understand the +case. He was about to elaborate on the subject of military training when +a middle-aged man wearing a bowler hat and a fur-lined overcoat turned +from the counter. He had a square, clean-shaven face and very bright and +active black eyes. + +"Excuse me, corporal," the stranger said, "but may I horn in and inquire +what you think of it yourself?" + +"You can ask if you want to, Mr. Sill," said Mr. Hammond, "but you won't +hear any kick out of Peter Starkley, whether he likes it or not." + +"It's easier than working in the woods, either chopping or teaming," +said Peter pleasantly, "and I'll bet a dollar it is a sight easier than +the real fighting will be." + +"That's the way to look at it, corporal," said the stranger. "I guess +that in a war like this a man has to make up his mind to take the fun +and the ferocity, the music and the mud, and the pie and the pain, just +as they come." + +"I guess so," said Peter. + +The stranger shook his hand cordially and just before he turned away +remarked, "Maybe you and I will meet again sooner than you expect." + +"Who is he, and what's he driving at?" asked Peter, when the stranger +had left the store. + +"He is a Yank, and a traveler for Maddock & Co. of St. John, and his +name is Hiram Sill--but I don't know what he is driving at any more than +you do," replied Mr. Hammond. + +The storekeeper invited Peter to call round at the house and to stay to +dinner and for as long as he liked afterwards. Peter accepted the +invitation. The Hammond house stood beside the store, but farther back +from the road. It was white and big, with a veranda in front of it, a +row of leafless maples, a snowdrifted lawn and a picket fence. Vivia +Hammond opened the door to his ring. From behind the curtain of the +parlor window she had seen him approach. + +At dinner Peter talked more than was usual with him; something in the +way the girl listened to him inspired him to conversation. At two +o'clock he accompanied her to the river and skated with her. They had +such parts of the river as were not drifted with snow to themselves, +except for two little boys. The little boys, interested in Peter as a +military man, kept them constantly in sight. Peter felt decidedly +hostile toward those harmless boys, but he was too shy to mention it to +Vivia. He was delighted and astonished when she turned upon them at last +and said: + +"Billy Brandon, you and Jack had better take off your skates and go +home." + +"I guess we got as much right as anybody on this here river," replied +Billy Brandon, but there was a lack of conviction in his voice. + +"You were both in bed with grippe only last week," Vivia retorted; "but +I'll call in at your house and ask your mother about it on my way up the +hill." + +The little boys had nothing to say to that. They maintained a casual +air, skated in circles and figures for a few minutes and then went home. +For ten minutes after that the corporal and the girl skated in an +electrical silence, looking everywhere except at each other. Then Peter +ventured a slanting glance across his left shoulder at her little +fur-cuddled face. Their eyes met. + +"Poor Mrs. Brandon can't manage those boys," she said. "But they are +very good boys, really. They do everything I tell them." + +"Why shouldn't they? But I'm glad they're gone, anyway," he replied, in +a voice that seemed to be tangled and strangled in the collar of his +greatcoat. + +When Vivia and Peter returned to the house the eastern sky was eggshell +green and the west, low along the black forests, as red as the draft of +a stove. Their conversation had never fully recovered after the incident +of the two little boys. Wonderful and amazing thoughts and emotions +churned round in Peter's head and heart, but he did not venture to give +voice to them. They bewildered him. He stayed to tea and at that +comfortable meal Mr. and Mrs. Hammond did the talking. Vivia and Peter +looked at each other only shyly as if they were afraid of what they +might see in each other's eyes. + +At last Peter went to the barn and harnessed the mare. Then he returned +to the house to say good night to the ladies. That accomplished, Vivia +accompanied him to the front door. Beyond the front door, as a +protection against icy winds and drifting snow, was the winter +porch--not much bigger than a sentry box. Stepping across the threshold, +from the warm hall into the porch, Peter turned and clutched and held +the girl's hand across the threshold. The tumult of his heart flooded up +and smothered the fear in his brain. + +"I never spent such a happy day in all my life," he said. + +Vivia said nothing. And then the mischief got into the elbow of the +corporal's right arm. It twitched; and, since his right hand still +clasped Vivia's hand, the girl was jerked, with a little skip, right out +of the hall and into the boxlike porch. + +Two seconds later Peter pulled open the porch door and dashed into the +frosty night. He jumped into the pung, and away went the mare as if +something of her master's madness had been communicated to her. The +corporal had kissed Vivia! + +Peter returned to his battalion two days later. In St. John he found +everything much as usual. Hammer was as brisk and soldierly as ever, but +Jim Hammond was more sulky than before. Peter considered the battalion +with a new interest. Life, even away from Beaver Dam, seemed more worth +while, and he went at his work with a jump. He wrote twice a week to +Vivia, spending hours in the construction of each letter and yet always +leaving out the things that he wanted most to write. The girl's replies +were the results of a similar literary method. + +The training of the battalion went on, indoors and out, day after day. +In March, Jim Hammond went home for six days. By that time he was known +throughout the battalion as a confirmed sulker. The six days passed; the +seventh day came and went without sight or news of him, and then the +adjutant wired to Mr. Hammond. No reply came from the storekeeper. +Lieut. Scammell questioned Peter about the family. Peter told what he +knew--that the Hammonds were fine people, that one son was an officer +already in England, and that the father was an honest and patriotic +citizen. So another wire was sent from the orderly room. That, like the +first, failed to produce results. + +The adjutant, Capt. Long, then sent for Peter. This officer was not much +more than five feet high, despite the name of his fathers, and was built +in proportion. It tickled the humor of the men to see such a little +fellow chase ten hundred bigger fellows round from morning until night. + +"You are to go upriver and find out why Private Hammond has not returned +to duty," said the captain. + +"Yes, sir," said Peter. + +"Inform me by wire," continued the captain. "Use your brains. I am +sending you alone, because I want to give Hammond a chance for the sake +of his brother overseas. Here are your pass, your railway warrant and a +chit for the paymaster. That's all, Corp. Starkley." + +Peter saluted and retired. He reached Fredericton that night and the +home village of Jim Hammond by noon of the next day. He went straight to +the store, where Mr. Hammond greeted him with astonishment. Peter saw no +sign of Jim. + +"I didn't expect to see you back so soon," said Mr. Hammond. + +"I got a chance, so I took it," replied Peter. "How's all the family?" + +The storekeeper smiled. "The womenfolk are well," he said. + +Peter saw that he had come suddenly to the point where he must exercise +all the tact he possessed. He felt keenly embarrassed. + +"Did you get a telegram?" he asked. + +"No. Did you wire us you were coming?" + +"Not that, exactly. You see, it was like this, Mr. Hammond: when Jim +didn't get back the day he was due the adjutant sent you a wire, and +when he didn't get an answer he sent another--and when you didn't reply +to that he detailed me to come along and see what was wrong." + +The storekeeper stared at him. "I never got any telegram. Jim came home +on two weeks' furlough, and he has five days of it left. You and your +adjutant must be crazy." + +"Two weeks," repeated Peter. "It was six days he got." + +"Six days! Are you sure of that, Peter Starkley?" + +"As sure as that's my name, Mr. Hammond. And the adjutant sent you two +telegrams, asking why Jim didn't return to duty when his pass was +up--and he didn't get any answer. If you didn't get one or other of +those telegrams, then there is something wrong somewhere." + +Mr. Hammond's face clouded. "I didn't get any wire, Peter--and Jim went +away day before yesterday, to visit some friends," he said. + +They eyed each other in silence for a little while; both were bitterly +embarrassed, and the storekeeper was numbed with shame. + +"I'll go for him," he said. "If I fetch him to you here, will you +promise to--to keep the truth of it quiet, Peter--from his mother and +sister and the folk about here?" + +"I'll do the best I can," promised the corporal, "but not for Jim's +sake, mind you, Mr. Hammond. Capt. Long is for giving him a chance +because of his brother, Pat, over on Salisbury Plain--and that's why he +sent me alone, instead of sending a sergeant with an escort." + +"I'll go fetch him, Peter," said the other, in a shaking voice. "You go +along to Beaver Dam and come back to-morrow--to see Vivia. When Jim and +I turn up you meet him just like it was by chance. Keep your mouth shut, +Peter. Not a word to a living soul about his only having six days. He's +not well, and that's the truth." + +A dull anger was awake in Peter by this time. + +"Something the matter with his feet," he said and left the store. + +Here he was, told to be tactful by Capt. Long and to keep his mouth shut +by Mr. Hammond, all on account of a sulky, lazy, bad-tempered fellow who +had been a disgrace to the battalion since the day he joined it. And not +a word about stopping for dinner! + +He crossed the road to the hotel, made arrangements to be driven out to +Beaver Dam and then ate a lonely dinner. He thought of Vivia Hammond +only a few yards away from him, yet unconscious of his proximity--and he +wanted to punch the head of her brother Jim. He drove away from the +hotel up the long hill without venturing a glance at the windows of the +big white house on the other side of the road. + +The family at Beaver Dam accepted his visit without question. No mention +was made of Jim Hammond that night. Peter was up and out early the next +morning, lending a hand with the feeding and milking. + +After breakfast he and Dick went over to his own place to have a look at +his house and barns. + +"Frank Sacobie came home last week," said Dick. "He's been out to see us +twice. He wants to enlist in your outfit, but I am trying to hold him +off till next year so's we can go over together." + +"You babies had better keep your bibs on a few years longer," said +Peter. "I guess there will be lots of time for all of you to fight in +this war without forcing yourselves under glass." + +They rounded a spur of spruces and saw Sacobie approaching on snowshoes +across the white meadows. He had grown taller and deeper in the chest +since Peter had last seen him. The greeting was cordial but not wordy. +Sacobie turned and accompanied them. + +"I see Jim Hammond yesterday, out Pike Settlement way," he said. + +"That so?" returned Peter, trying to seem uninterested. + +"No uniform on, neither, and drinkin' some," continued Sacobie. "Says +he's got his discharge from that outfit because it ain't reckoned as +first-class and has been asked to be an officer in another outfit." + +Then Peter forgot his instructions. Jim Hammond too good for the 26th +battalion! Jim Hammond offered a commission! His indignant heart sent +his blood racing through him. + +"He's a liar!" he cried. "Yes, and a deserter, too, by thunder!" + +Dick was astonished, but Frank Sacobie received the information calmly, +without so much as a flicker of the eyelids. + +"I think that all the time I listen to him," he said. "I figger to get +his job, anyway, if he lie or tell the truth. I go down to-morrow, +Peter, and you tell the colonel how I make a darn sight better soldier +than Jim Hammond." + +Peter gripped the others each by an arm. + +"I shouldn't have said that," he cautioned them. "Forget it! You boys +have got to keep it under your hats, but I guess it's up to me to take a +jog out Pike Settlement way. If you boys say a word about it, you get in +wrong with me and you get me in wrong with a whole heap of folks." + +They turned and went back to Beaver Dam. There they hitched the mares to +the big red pung and stowed in their blankets and half a bag of oats. + +"I can't tell you where I'm going or what for, but only that it is a +military duty," said Peter in answer to the questions of the family. + +He took Dick and Frank Sacobie with him. Once they got beyond the +outskirts of the home settlement they found heavy sledding. At noon they +halted, blanketed and baited the mares, boiled the kettle and lunched. +The wide, white roadway before them, winding between walls of +green-black spruces and gray maples, was marked with only the tracks of +one pair of horses and one pair of sled runners--evidently made the day +before. Peter guessed them to be those of Mr. Hammond's team, but he +said nothing about that to his companions. + +Here and there they passed drifted clearings and little houses sending +blue feathers of smoke into the bright air. They came to places where +the team that had passed the previous day had been stuck in the drifts +and laboriously dug out. + +They were within two miles of the settlement, between heavy woods +fronted with tangled alders, when the cracking _whang!_ of exploding +cordite sounded in the underbrush. The mares plunged, then stood. The +reins slipped from Peter's mittened hands. + +"I'm hit, boys!" he said and then sagged over across Dick's knees. + + [Illustration: "'I'M HIT, BOYS!' HE SAID."] + +They laid him on hay and horse blankets in the bottom of the pung and +covered him with fur robes. Then Sacobie got up in front and drove. + +No sound except the rapping of a woodpecker came from the woods. Peter +breathed regularly. Presently he opened his eyes. + +"It's in the ribs, by the feel of it--but it doesn't hurt much," he +said. "Felt like a kick from a horse at first. Remember not to say +anything about Jim Hammond." + +They put him to bed at the first farmhouse they reached. All his +clothing on the right side was stiff with blood. Dick bandaged the +wound; and a doctor arrived two hours later. The bullet had nipped in +and out, splintering a rib, and lay just beneath the skin. Peter had +bled a good deal, but not to a dangerous extent. + +Before sunrise the next morning Dick and Frank Sacobie set out on their +return journey, taking with them a brief telegram and a letter for Capt. +Long. Peter had dictated the message, but had written the letter with +great effort, one wavery word after another. + +Mr. Hammond and John Starkley reached Pike Settlement late at night. The +storekeeper seemed broken in spirit, but some color came back to his +face when he saw Peter lying there in the bed at the farmhouse with as +cheerful an air as if he had only strained his ankle. + +"I must see you a few minutes alone before I leave," he whispered, +stooping over the bed. + +"Don't worry," answered Peter. + +John Starkley was vastly relieved to find his son doing so well. His +bewilderment that any one in that country should pull a trigger on Peter +almost swamped his indignation. The more he thought it over the more +bewildered he became. + +"You haven't an enemy in the world, Peter--except the Germans," he said. +"But that was no chance shot. If it had been an accident, the fellow +with the rifle would have come out to lend a hand." + +"I guess that's so," replied Peter. "Maybe it was a German. It means a +lot to the Kaiser to keep me out of this war." + +His father smiled. "Joking aside, lad," he said, "who do you suppose it +was? What was the bullet? Many a murderer has been traced before now on +a less likely clue than a bullet." + +"Isn't the bullet on the table there, Mr. Hammond? The doctor gave it to +me, and I chucked it somewhere--over there or somewhere." + +They looked in vain for the bullet. Later, when the guests and the +household were at supper, Mr. Hammond excused himself from table and ran +up to Peter's room. He closed the door behind him, leaned over the bed +and grasped Peter's left hand in both of his. + +"I did my best," he whispered. "I found him and told him you had been +sent because the officer wanted to give him a chance. But he had been +drinking heavy. He wasn't himself, Peter--he was like a madman. I begged +him to come back with me, but he wouldn't hear reason or kindness. He +knocked me down--me, his own father--and got away from that house. What +are you going to do, Peter? You are a man, Starkley--a big man--big +enough to be merciful. What d'you mean to do?" + +"Nothing," said Peter. "I came to find Jim, and I haven't found him. I +got shot instead by some one I haven't seen hair, hide or track of. It's +up to the army to find Jim, if they still want him; but as far as I am +concerned he may be back with the battalion this minute for all I know. +I hope he is. As for the fellow who made a target of me, well, he didn't +kill me, and I don't hold a grudge against him." + +Mr. Hammond went home the first thing in the morning. John Starkley +waited until the doctor called again and dressed the wound and said he +had never seen any one take a splintered rib and a hole in the side so +well as Peter. + +"If he keeps on like this, you'll be able to take him home in ten days +or so," said the doctor. + +So John Starkley returned to Beaver Dam, delivered the good news to his +family and heard in return that young Frank Sacobie had gone to St. John +and joined the 26th. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + THE VETERANS OF OTHER DAYS + + +WHEN Peter was able to travel, he was taken home to Beaver Dam, and +there a medical officer, a major in spurs, examined him and +congratulated him on being alive. Peter was given six months' sick +leave; and that, he knew, killed his chance of crossing the ocean with +his battalion. He protested, but the officer told him that, whether in +bed in his father's house or with his platoon, he was still in the army +and would have to do as he was told. The officer said it kindly and +added that as soon as he was fit he should return to his battalion, +whether it was in Canada, England or Flanders. + +Jim Hammond vanished. The army marked him as a deserter, and even his +own battalion forgot him. Confused rumors circulated round his home +village for a little while and then faded and expired. As Jim Hammond +vanished from the knowledge and thought of men, so vanished the +mysterious rifleman who had splintered Peter's rib. + +Spring brought the great news of the stand of the First Canadian +Division at Ypres--the stand of the few against the many, of the +Canadian militia against the greatest and most ruthless fighting machine +of the whole world. The German army was big and ready, but it was not +great as we know greatness now. The little Belgians had already checked +it and pierced the joints of its armor; the French had beaten it against +odds; the little old army of England, with its monocles and its tea and +its pouter-chested sergeant majors, had outshot it and outfought it at +every meeting; and now three brigades of Canadian infantry and a few +batteries of Canadian artillery had stood undaunted before its deluge of +metal and strangling gas and held it back from the open road to Calais +and Paris. + +Lieut. Pat Hammond wrote home about the battle. He had been in the edge +of it and had escaped unhurt. Henry Starkley, of the First Field +Company, was there, too. He received a slight wound. Private letters and +the great stories of the newspapers thrilled the hearts of thousands of +peaceful, unheroic folk. Volunteers flowed in from lumber camps and +farms. + +In May Dick Starkley made the great move of his young life. He was now +seventeen years old and sound and strong. He saw that Peter could not +get away with his battalion--that, unless something unexpected happened, +the Second Canadian Division would get away without a Starkley of Beaver +Dam. + +So he did the unexpected thing: he went away to St. John without a word, +introduced himself to Sgt. Dave Hammer as Peter's brother, added a year +to his age and became a member of the 26th Battalion. He found Frank +Sacobie there, already possessed of all the airs of an old soldier. + +Dick sent a telegram to his father and a long, affectionate, confused +letter to his mother. His parents understood and forgave and went to St. +John and told him so--and Peter sent word that he, too, understood; and +Dick was happy. Then with all his thought and energy and ambition he set +to work to make himself a good soldier. + +Peter did not grumble again about his sick leave. His wound healed; and +as the warm days advanced he grew stronger with every day. He had been +wounded in the performance of his duty as surely as if a German had +fired the shot across the mud of No Man's Land; so he accepted those +extra months in the place and life he loved with a gratitude that was +none the less deep for being silent. + +In June the Battalion embarked for England, in strength eleven hundred +noncommissioned officers and men and forty-two officers. After an +uneventful voyage of eleven days they reached Devenport, in England, on +the twenty-fourth day of the month. The three other battalions of the +brigade had reached England a month before; the 26th joined them at the +training camps in Kent and immediately set to work to learn the science +of modern warfare. They toiled day and night with vigor and constancy; +and before fall the battalion was declared efficient for service at the +front. + +Both Dick Starkley and Frank Sacobie throve on the hard work. The +musketry tests proved Sacobie to be one of the best five marksmen in the +battalion. Dick was a good shot, too, but fell far below his friend at +the longer ranges. In drill, bombing and physical training, Dick showed +himself a more apt pupil than the Malecite. At trench digging and route +marching there was nothing to choose between them, in spite of the fact +that Sacobie had the advantage of a few inches in length of leg. Both +were good soldiers, popular with their comrades and trusted by their +officers. Both were in Dave Hammer's section and Mr. Scammell's platoon. + +One afternoon in August Henry Starkley turned up at Westenhanger, on +seven days' leave from France. He looked years older than when Dick had +last seen him and thinner of face, and on his left breast was stitched +the ribbon of the military cross. He obtained a pass for Dick and took +him up to London. They put up at a quiet hotel off the Strand, at which +Henry had stopped on his frequent week-end visits to town from Salisbury +Plain. As they were engaged in filling in the complicated and exhaustive +registration form the hall porter gave Henry three letters and told him +that a gentleman had called several times to see him. + +"What name?" asked Henry. + +"That he didn't tell me, sir," replied the porter, "but as it was him +wrote the letters you have in your hand you'll soon know, sir." + +Henry opened one of the envelopes and turned the inclosure over in quest +of the writer's signature. There it was--J. A. Starkley-Davenport. All +three letters were from the same hand, penned at dates several weeks +apart. They said that before her marriage the writer's mother had been a +Miss Mary Starkley, daughter of a London merchant by the name of Richard +Starkley. Richard Starkley, a colonial by birth with trade connections +with the West Indies, had come from Beaver Dam in the province of New +Brunswick. The letters said further that their writer had read in the +casualty lists the name of Lieut. Henry Starkley of the Canadian +Engineers, and that after diligent inquiry he had learned that this same +officer had registered at the Canadian High Commissioner's office in +October, 1914, and given his London address as the Tudor Hotel. Failing +to obtain any further information concerning Henry Starkley, the writer +had kept a constant eye on the Tudor Hotel. He begged Mr. Henry Starkley +to ring up Mayfair 2607, without loss of time, should any one of these +letters ever come to his hand. + +"What's his hurry, I wonder?" remarked Henry. "After three generations +without a word I guess he'll have to wait until to-morrow morning to +hear from the Starkleys of Beaver Dam." + +"Why not let him wait for three more generations?" suggested Dick. "His +grandfather, that London merchant, soon forgot about the people back in +the woods at Beaver Dam. Since the second battle of Ypres, this lad with +the hitched-up-double name wants to be seen round with you, Henry." + +"If that's all, he does not want much," said Henry. "We'll take a look +at him, anyway. Don't forget that the first Starkley of Beaver Dam was +once an English soldier and that there was a first battle of Ypres +before there was a second." + +The brothers, the lieutenant of engineers and the infantry private, had +dinner at a restaurant where there were shaded candles and music; then +they went to a theater. Although the war was now only a year old, London +had already grown accustomed to the "gentleman ranker." Brothers, +cousins and even sons of officers in the little old army were now +private soldiers and noncommissioned officers in the big new army. The +uniform was the great thing. Rank badges denoted differences of degree, +not of kind. So Lieut. Henry Starkley and Private Dick Starkley, +together at their little luxurious table for two and later elbow to +elbow at the theater, did not cause comment. Immediately after breakfast +the next morning Henry rang up the Mayfair number. A voice of inquiring +deference, a voice that suggested great circumspection and extreme +polish, answered him. Henry asked for Mr. Starkley-Davenport. + +"You want the captain, sir," corrected the voice. "Mr. David was killed +at Ypres in '14. What name, sir?" + +"Starkley," replied Henry. + +"Of Canada, sir? Of Beaver Dam? Here is the captain, sir." + +Another voice sounded in Henry's ear, asking whether it was Henry +Starkley of the sappers on the other end of the line. Henry replied in +the affirmative. + +"It is Jack Davenport speaking--Starkley-Davenport," continued the +voice. "Glad you have my letters at last. Are you at the same hotel? Can +you wait there half an hour for me?" + +"I'll wait," said Henry. + +He and Dick awaited the arrival of the grandson of Richard Starkley with +lively curiosity. That he was a captain, and that some one connected +with him, perhaps a brother, had been killed at Ypres in 1914, added +considerable interest to him in their eyes. + +"Size him up before trying any of your old-soldier airs on him, young +fellow," warned Henry. + +They sat in the lounge of the hotel and kept a sharp watch on everyone +who entered by the revolving doors. It was a quiet place, as hotels go +in London, but during the half hour of their watching more people than +the entire population of Beaver Dam were presented to their scrutiny. At +last a pale young fellow in a Panama hat and a gray-flannel suit +entered. Under his left shoulder was a crutch and in his right hand a +big, rubber-shod stick. His left knee was bent, and his left foot swung +clear of the ground. His hands were gloved in gray, and he wore a +smoke-blue flower in his buttonhole. Only his necktie was out of tone +with the rest of his equipment: it was in stripes of blue and red and +yellow. Behind him, close to his elbow, came a thin, elderly man who was +dressed in black. + +"Lieut. Starkley?" he inquired of the hall porter. + +At that Henry and Dick both sprang to their feet and went across to the +man in gray. Before they could introduce themselves the young stranger +edged himself against his elderly companion, thus making a prop of him, +hooked the crook of his stick into a side pocket of his coat, and +extended his right hand to Henry. He did it all so swiftly and smoothly +that it almost escaped notice; and, pitiful as it was, it almost escaped +pity. + +"Will you lunch with me--if you have nothing better to do?" he asked. +"You're on leave, I know, and it sounds cheek to ask--but I want to talk +to you about something rather important." + +"Of course--and here is my young brother," said Henry. + +The captain shook hands with Dick and then stared at him. + +"You are only a boy," he said; and then, seeing the blood mount to +Dick's tanned cheeks, he continued, "and all the better for that, +perhaps. The nippiest man in my platoon was only nineteen." + +"Of course you remember, sir, Mr. David had not attained his twentieth +birthday," the elderly man in black reminded him. + +"You are right, Wilson," said the captain. "Hit in October, '14. He was +my young brother. There were just the two of us. Shall we toddle along? +I kept my taxi." + +Capt. J. A. Starkley-Davenport occupied three rooms and a bath in his +own house, which was a big one in a desirable part of town. The +remaining rooms were occupied by his servants. And such servants! + +The cook was so poor a performer that whenever the captain had guests +for luncheon or dinner she sent out to a big hotel near by for the more +important dishes--but her husband had been killed in Flanders, and her +three sons were still in the field. Wilson, who had been Jack's father's +color sergeant in South Africa, was the valet. + +The butler was a one-armed man of forty-five years who had served as a +company sergeant major in the early days of the war; in rallying half a +dozen survivors of his company he had got his arm in the way of a chunk +of high-explosive shell and had decorated his chest with the +Distinguished Conduct Medal. He had only the vaguest notions what his +duties as butler required of him but occupied his time in arguing the +delicate question of seniority with Wilson and the coachman and making +frequent reports to the captain. + +The coachman, who had served forty years in the navy, most of the time +as chief petty officer, claimed seniority of the butler and Wilson on +the grounds of belonging to the senior service. But the ex-sergeants +argued that the captain's house was as much a bit of the army as brigade +headquarters in France, and that the polite thing for any sailorman to +do who found a home there was to forget all about seniority; and that +for their part they did not believe the British navy was older than the +British army. + +Captain Starkley-Davenport introduced into this household his cousins +from Beaver Dam, without apologies and with only a few words of +explanation. In spite of the butler's protests, the valet and the +coachman intruded themselves on the luncheon party, pretending to wait +on table, but in reality satisfying their curiosity concerning the +military gentlemen from Canada whose name was the front half of the +captain's name. They paused frequently in their light duties round the +table and frankly gave ear to the conversation. Their glances went from +face to face with childish eagerness, intent on each speaker in turn. +The captain did not mind, for he was accustomed to their ways and their +devouring interest in him; Henry was puzzled at first and then amused; +and Dick was highly flattered. + +"There isn't anyone of our blood in our regiment now, and that is what I +particularly want to talk to you chaps about," said the captain, after a +little talk on general subjects. "My father and young brother are gone, +and the chances are that I won't get back. But the interests of the +regiment are still mine--and I want the family to continue to have a +stake in it. No use asking you to transfer, Henry, I can see that; you +are a sapper and already proved in the field, and I know how sappers +feel about their job; but Dick's an infantryman. What d'you say to +transfer and promotion, Dick? You can get your commission in one of our +new battalions as easy as kiss. It will help you and the old regiment." + +"But perhaps I shouldn't make a good officer," replied Dick. "I've never +been in action, you know." + +"Don't worry about that. I'll answer for your quality. You wouldn't have +enlisted if the right stuff wasn't in you." + +"But I'd like to prove it, first--although I'd like to be an officer +mighty well. That's what I intend to be some day. I think I'll stick to +the 26th a while. That would be fairer--and I'd feel better satisfied, +if ever I won a commission, to have it in my own outfit. Frank Sacobie +would feel sore if I left him, before we'd ever been in France together, +to be an officer in another outfit. But there is Peter. He is a corporal +already and a mighty good soldier." + +He told all about Peter and the queer way he was wounded back in Canada +and then all about his friend, Frank Sacobie. The captain and the three +attendants listened with interest. The captain asked many questions; and +the butler, the valet and the coachman were on the point of doing the +same many times. + +After luncheon Wilson, the elderly valet, took command gently but firmly +and led the captain off to bed. The brothers left the addresses of +themselves and Peter with the captain and promised to call at every +opportunity and to bring Sacobie to see him at the first chance. + +Dick and Frank Sacobie continued their training, and in July Dick got +his first stripe. A few members of the battalion went to the hospital, +and a few were returned to Canada for one reason or another. In August a +little draft of men fresh from Canada came to the battalion. + +One of the new men kept inquiring so persistently for Corp. Peter +Starkley that in the course of time he was passed along to Dick, who +told him about Peter. + +"I'm downright sorry to hear that," said the new arrival. "I saw him in +Mr. Hammond's store one day and took a shine to him, but as you're his +own brother I guess I'm in the right outfit. Hiram Sill is my name." + +They shook hands cordially. + +"I'm an American citizen and not so young as I used to be," continued +Sill, "but the minute this war started I knew I'd be into it before +long. Soldiering is a business now, and I am a business man. So it +looked to me as if I were needed--as if the energy I was expending in +selling boots and shoes for Maddock & Co. would count some if turned +against the Kaiser. So I swore an oath to fight King George's enemies, +and I guess I've made no mistake in that. King George and Hiram Sill see +eye to eye and tooth to tooth in this war like two coons at a +watermelon." + +In spite of the fact that Mr. Scammell's platoon was already up to +strength, Sill worked his way into it. + +He had a very good reason for wanting to be in that particular platoon, +and there were men already in it who had no particular reason for +remaining in it instead of going to some other platoon; so--as Sill very +justly remarked to Dick, to Sacobie, to Sergt. Hammer, to Lieut. +Scammell and to Capt. Long--he did not see why he could not be where he +wanted to be. Friendship for Frank Sacobie and Dick Starkley and +admiration for Sergt. Hammer and Lieut. Scammell were the reasons he +gave for wanting to be in that platoon. + +"He seems a friendly chap," said the adjutant to Mr. Scammell. "Will you +take him? If so, you can let the Smith with the red head go over to +Number Three, where he will be with a whole grist of lads from his own +part of the country. What d'ye say? He looks smart and willing to me." + +"Sure I'll take him," said Mr. Scammell. "He says he admires me." + +So Hiram Sill became a member of Number Two Platoon. He worked with the +energy of a tiger and with the good nature of a lamb. He talked a great +deal, but always with a view to acquiring or imparting knowledge. When +he found that his military duties and the cultivation of friendships did +not use up all his time and energy, he set himself to the task of +ascertaining how many Americans were enrolled in the First and Second +Canadian divisions. Then indeed he became a busy man; and still his cry +continued to be that soldiering was a business. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +PRIVATE SILL ACTS + + +ON the night of September 15, 1915, the brigade of which the 26th +Battalion was a unit crossed from Folkstone to Boulogne without +accident. All the ranks were in the highest spirits, fondly imagining +that the dull routine of training was dead forever and that the practice +of actual warfare was as entertaining as dangerous. + +The brigade moved up by way of the fine old city of Saint Omer and the +big Flemish town of Hazebrouck. By the fourth day after landing in +France the whole brigade was established in the forward area of +operations, along with the other brigades of the new division. On the +night of the 19th the battalion marched up and went into hutments and +billets close behind the Kemmel front. That night, from the hill above +their huts, the men from New Brunswick beheld for the first time that +fixed, fire-pulsing line beyond which lay the menace of Germany. + +The battalion went in under cover of darkness, and by midnight had taken +over from the former defenders the headquarters of companies, the +dugouts in the support trenches and the sentry posts in the fire trench. +There were Dick Starkley and his comrades holding back the Huns from the +throat of civilization. It was an amazing and inspiring position to be +in for the first time. In front of them, just beneath and behind the +soaring and falling star shells and Very lights, crouched the most +ruthless and powerful armies of the world. + +To the right and left, every now and then, machine guns broke forth in +swift, rapping fire. When the fire was from the positions opposite, the +bullets snapped in the air like the crackings of a whip. The white stars +went up and down. Great guns thumped occasionally; now and then a high +shell whined overhead; now and then the burst of an exploding shell +sounded before or behind. It was a quiet night; but to the new battalion +it was full of thrills. The sentries never took their eyes from the +mysterious region beyond their wire. Every blob of blackness beyond +their defenses set their pulses racing and sent their hands to their +weapons. + +Dick Starkley and Frank Sacobie stood shoulder to shoulder on the fire +step for hours, staring with all their eyes and listening with all their +ears. Hiram Sill sat at their feet and talked about how he felt on this +very particular occasion. His friends paid no attention to him. + +"This is the proudest moment of my life," he said. "We are historic +figures, boys--and that's a thing I never hoped to be. In my humble way, +I stand for more than George Washington did. This is a bigger war than +George ever dreamed of, and I have a bigger and better reason for +fighting the Huns than Gen. Washington ever had for fighting the fool +Britishers." + +"Did you see that?" asked Dick of Sacobie. "Over in the edge of their +wire. There! Look quick now! Is it a man?" + +"Looks like a man, but it's been there right along and ain't moved yet," +said Frank. "Maybe it's a stump." + +Just then Lieut. Scammell came along. He got up on the fire step and, +directed by Dick, trained his glass on the black thing in the edge of +the enemy's wire. A German star shell gave him light. + +"That's a German--a dead one," he said. "I've been told about him. There +was a bit of a scrap over there three nights ago, and that is one of the +scrappers." + +Hiram forgot about Gen. Washington and mounted the fire step to have a +look. He borrowed the officer's glass for the purpose. + +"Do his friends intend to leave him out there much longer, sir?" he +asked. "If they do, it's a sure sign of weakness. They're scart." + +"They are scart, right enough--but I bet they wouldn't be if they knew +this bit of trench was being held now by a green battalion," replied Mr. +Scammell. "They'd be over for identifications if they knew." + +"Let them come!" exclaimed Private Sill. "I bet a dollar they wouldn't +stay to breakfast--except a few who wouldn't want any." + +At that moment a rifle cracked to the right of them, evidently from +their own trench and not more than one hundred yards away. It was +followed close by a spatter of shots, then the smashing bursts of +grenades, more musketry and the _rat-tat-tat_ of several machine guns. +Bullets snapped in the air. Lights trailed up from both lines. Dull +thumps sounded far away, and then came the whining songs of high-flying +shells. Flashes of fire astonished the eye, and crashing reports stunned +the ear. + +"They're at us!" exclaimed the lieutenant. "Open fire on the parapet +opposite, unless you see a better target, and don't leave your posts. +Keep low. Better use the loopholes." + +He left the fire step and ran along the duck boards toward the heart of +the row. + +Dick and Frank Sacobie and Hiram Sill, firing rapidly through the +loopholes, added what they could to the disturbance. Now and again a +bullet rang against the steel plate of a loophole. One or another of +them took frequent observations through a periscope, for at that time +the Canadian troops were not yet supplied with shrapnel helmets. Dave +Hammer, breathless with excitement, joined them for a few seconds. + +"They tried to jump us,--must have learned we're a green relief,--but +we've chewed them up for fair!" he gasped. "Must have been near a +hundred of 'em--but not one got through our wire. Keep yer heads down +for a while, boys; they're traversing our top with emmagees." + +At last the enemy's artillery fire slackened and died. Ours drubbed away +cheerily for another fifteen minutes, then ceased as quick and clean as +the snap of a finger. The rifle fire and machine-gun fire dwindled and +ceased. Even the up-spurting of the white and watchful stars diminished +by half; but now and again one of them from the hostile lines, curving +far forward in its downward flight, illuminated a dozen or more +motionless black shapes in and in front of our rusty wire. Except for +those motionless figures No Man's Land was again deserted. The big rats +ran there undisturbed. + +Sacobie looked over the parapet; Hiram Sill and Dick sat on the fire +step at the Malecite's feet. They felt as tired as if they had been +wrestling with strong men for half an hour. Dave Hammer came along the +trench and halted before them. + +"Those Huns or Fritzes or whatever you call them are crazy," he said. +"Did you ever hear of such a fool thing as that? They've left a dozen +dead out in front, besides what they carried home along with their +wounded--and all they did to us was wound three of our fellows with that +first bomb they threw, and two more with machine-gun fire." + +"Their officers must be boneheads, for sure," said Hiram. "War's a +business,--and a mighty swift one,--and you can't succeed in business +without knowing something about psychology. Yes, gentlemen, psychology, +queer as it may sound." + +"Sounds mighty queer to me!" muttered Sacobie, glancing down. + +"You must study men," continued Private Sill, not at all abashed, "their +souls and hearts and minds--if you want to make a success at anything +except bee farming. Now, take this fool raid of the Huns. They were +smart enough to find out that a bunch of greenhorns took over this +trench to-night. So they thought they'd surprise us. Now, if they'd +known anything about psychology, they'd have known that just because we +were new and green we'd all be on our toes to-night, with our eyes +sticking out a yard and our ears buttoned right back. Sure! Every man of +us was on sentry duty to-night!" + +"I guess you've got the right idea, Old Psychology," said the sergeant. + +The 26th spent five days in the line on that tour. With the exception of +one day and night of rain they had fine weather. They mended their wire +and did a fair amount of business in No Man's Land. The enemy attempted +no further raids; his last effort had evidently given him more +information concerning the quality of the new battalion than he could +digest in a week. At any rate he kept very quiet. + +At the end of the tour the battalion went back a little way to huts on +the bushy flanks of Scherpenberg, where they "rested" by performing +squad, platoon and company drill and innumerable fatigues. The time +remaining at their disposal was devoted to football and base-ball and +investigations of villages and farmsteads in the neighborhood. + +Their second tour in was more lively and less comfortable than the +first. Under the drench of rain and the gnawing of dank and chilly mists +their trenches and all the surrounding landscape were changed from dry +earth to mud. Everything in the front line, including their persons, +became caked with mud. The duck boards became a chain of slippery traps; +and in low trenches they floated like rafts. The parapets slid in and +required constant attention; and what the water left undone in the way +of destruction the guns across the way tried to finish. + +It was hard on the spirit of new troops; they were toughened to severe +work and rough living, but not to the deadening mud of a front-line +trench in low ground. So their officers planned excitement for them, to +keep the fire of interest alive in their hearts. That excitement was +obtained in several ways, but always by a move of some sort against the +enemy or his defenses. Patrol work was the most popular form of relief +from muddy inaction. Lieut. Scammell quickly developed a skill in that +and an appetite for it that soon drew the colonel's attention to himself +and his followers. + + * * * * * + +By the end of September, even the medical officers of New Brunswick had +to admit that Corp. Peter Starkley was fully recovered from his wound. +As for Peter himself, he affirmed that he had not felt anything of it +for the past two months. He had worked at the haying and the harvesting +on Beaver Dam and his own place without so much as a twinge of pain. + +Peter returned to his military duties eagerly, but inspired only by his +sense of duty. His heart was more than ever in his own countryside; but +despite his natural modesty he knew that he was useful to his king and +country as a noncommissioned officer, and with that knowledge he +fortified his heart. He tried to tell Vivia Hammond something of what he +felt. His words were stumbling and inadequate, but she understood him. +And at the last he said: + +"Vivia, don't forget me, for I shall be thinking of you always--more +than of anyone or anything in the world." And then, not trusting his +voice for more, he kissed her hastily. + +Vivia wept and made no attempt to hide her tears or the reason for them. + +Shortly before Peter's return to the army he had received a letter from +Capt. Starkley-Davenport, telling of the reunion of the cousins in +London and virtually offering him a commission in the writer's old +regiment. Peter had also heard something of the plan from Dick a few +days before. He answered the captain's letter promptly and frankly, to +the effect that he had no military ambition beyond that of doing his +duty to the full extent of his power against Germany, and that a +commission in an English regiment was an honor he could accept only if +it should come to him unavoidably, in the day's work. + +Peter reached England in the third week of October and with three +hundred companions fresh from Canada was attached to a reserve battalion +on St. Martin's Plain for duty and instruction. Peter was given the +acting rank of sergeant. Early in December he crossed to France and +reached his battalion without accident. He found that the 26th had +experienced its full share of the fortunes and misfortunes of war. +Scores of familiar faces were gone. His old platoon had suffered many +changes since he had left it in St. John a year ago. Its commander, a +Lieut. Smith, was an entire stranger to him, and he had known the +platoon sergeant as a private. Mr. Scammell was now scout officer and +expecting his third star at any moment. Dave Hammer, still a sergeant, +and Dick, Sacobie and Hiram Sill also were scouts. Dick, was a corporal +now and had never been touched by shot, shell or sickness. Sacobie had +been slightly wounded and had been away at a field ambulance for a week. + +Peter rejoined his old platoon and, as it was largely composed at this +time of new troops, was permitted to retain his acting rank of sergeant. +He performed his duties so satisfactorily that he was confirmed in his +rank after his first tour in the trenches. + +On the third night of Peter's second tour in the front line, Dave +Hammer, Dick and Frank Sacobie took him out to show him about. All +carried bombs, and Sergt. Hammer had a pistol as well. They were hoping +to surprise a party of Germans at work mending their wire. + +Hammer slipped over the parapet. Peter followed him. Dick and Sacobie +went over together, quick as the wink of an eye. Their faces and hands +were black. With Dave Hammer in the lead, Peter at the very soles of his +spiked boots and Dick and Sacobie elbow to elbow behind Peter, they +crawled out through their own wire by the way of an intricate channel. +When a star shell went up in front, near enough to light that particular +area, they lay motionless. They went forward during the brief periods of +darkness and half light. + +At last they got near enough to the German wire to see it plainly, and +the leader changed his course to the left. When they lay perfectly still +they could hear many faint, vague sounds in every direction: far, dull +thuds before and behind them, spatters of rifle fire far off to the +right and left, the bang of a Very pistol somewhere behind a parapet and +now and then the crash of a bursting shell. + +A few minutes later Dave twisted about and laid a hand on Peter's +shoulder. He gave it a gentle pull. Peter crawled up abreast of him. +Dave put his lips to Peter's ear and whispered: + +"There they are." + +A twisty movement of his right foot had already signaled the same +information to the veterans in the rear. Peter stared at the blotches of +darkness that Dave had indicated. They did not move often or quickly and +kept close to the ground. Sometimes, when a light was up, they became +motionless and instantly melted from view, merging into the shadows of +the night and the tangled wire. Now and then Peter heard some faint +sound of their labor, as they worked at the wire. + +"Only five of them," whispered the scout sergeant. "They are scared +blue. Bet their skunks of officers had to kick them out of the trench. +Let's sheer off a few yards and give 'em something to be scared about." + +Just then Dick and Frank squirmed up beside them. + +"Some more straight ahead of us," breathed the Indian. "Three or four." + +Hammer used his glass and saw that Sacobie's eyes had not fooled him. He +touched each of his companions to assure himself of their attention, +then twisted sharp to the left, back toward their own line, and crawled +away. They followed. After he had covered about ten yards, Dave turned +end for end in his muddy trail, and the others came up to him and turned +beside him. They saw that the wiring party and the patrol had joined. + +"Spread a bit," whispered Dave. "I'll chuck one at 'em, and when it +busts you fellows let fly and then beat it back for the hole in our +wire. Take cover if the emmagees get busy. I'll be right behind you." + +They moved a few paces to the right and left. Peter's lips felt dry, and +he wanted to sneeze. He took a plump, cold, heavy little grenade in his +muddy right hand. A few breathless, slow seconds passed and then +_smash!_ went Dave's bomb over against the Hun wire. Then Peter stood up +and threw--and three bombs exploded like one. + +Turning, Peter slithered along on all fours after Dick and Sacobie. The +startled Huns lighted up their front as if for a national fête; but +Peter chanced it and kept on going. A shrapnel shell exploded overhead +with a terrific sound, and the fat bullets spattered in the mud all +round him. He came to another and larger crater and was about to skirt +it when a familiar voice exclaimed: + +"Come in here, you idiot!" + +There was Dick and Frank Sacobie standing hip-deep in the mud and water +at the bottom of the hole. Peter joined them with a few bushels of mud. +A whiz-bang whizzed and banged red near-by, and the three ducked and +knocked their heads together. The water was bitterly cold. + +"Did you think you were on your way to the barns to milk?" asked Dick. +"Don't you know the machine guns are combing the ground?" + +"I'll remember," said Peter. "New work to me, and I guess I was a bit +flustered. I wonder where Dave Hammer has got himself to." + +"Some hole or other, sure," said Sacobie. "Don't worry 'bout Dave. He +put three bombs into them. I counted the busts. Fritz will quiet down in +a few minutes, I guess, and let us out of here--if our fellows don't get +gay and start all the artillery shootin' off." + +Our fellows did not get gay, our artillery refrained from shooting off, +and soon the enemy ceased his frenzied musketry and machine gunning and +bombing of his own wire and the harmless mud beyond. So Peter and Dick +and Sacobie left their wet retreat and crawled for home. They found +Sergt. Hammer waiting for them at the hole in the wire. He had already +given the word to the sentry; and so they made the passage of the wire +and popped into the trench. Hammer reported to Mr. Scammell, who was all +ready to go out with another patrol; and then the four went back to +their dugout in the support trench, devoured a mess of potatoes and +onions, drank a few mugs of tea and retired to their blankets, mud and +putties and all. + +That was the night of the 3d of December. In the battalion's summary of +intelligence to the brigade it read like this: + +"Night of 23d-24th, our patrols active. Small patrol of four, under +106254 Sgt. D. Hammer, encountered ten of the enemy in front of the +German wire. Bombs were exchanged and six of the enemy were killed or +wounded. Our patrol returned. 2.30 A. M. Lieut. Scammell placed tube in +hostile wire which exploded successfully. No casualties." + +The next day passed quietly, with a pale glimmer of sunshine now and +then, and between glimmers a flurry of moist snow. The Germans shouted +friendly messages across No Man's Land and suggested a complete +cessation of hostilities for the day and the morrow. The Canadians +replied that the next Fritz who cut any "love-your-enemy" capers on the +parapet would get what he deserved. + +"Peace on earth!" exclaimed the colonel of the 26th. "They are the +people to ask for it, the murderers! No, this is a war with a +reason--and we shoot on Christmas Eve just as quick as on any other +day." + +The day passed quietly. Soon after sunset Mr. Scammell sent two of his +scouts out to watch the gap in the German wire that he had blown with +his explosive tube. They returned at ten o'clock and reported that the +enemy had made no attempt to mend the gap. The night was misty and the +enemy's illumination a little above normal. + +At eleven o'clock Lieut. Scammell went out himself, accompanied by +Lieut. Harvey and nine men. They reached the gap in the enemy wire +without being discovered, and there they separated. Mr. Harvey and two +others moved along the front of the wire to the left, and a sergeant and +one man went to the right. Mr. Scammell and his five men passed through +the wire and extended a few yards to the left, close under the hostile +parapet. + +The officer stood up, close against the wet sandbags. Dave Hammer, Dick, +Peter, Hiram Sill and Sacobie followed his example. + +Then, all together, they tossed six bombs into the trench. The +shattering bangs of six more blended with the bangs of the first volley. +From right and left along the trench sounded other explosions. + +Obeying their officer's instructions, Scammell's men made the return +journey through the wire and struck out for home at top speed, trusting +to the mist to hide their movements from the foe. + +Scammell rid himself of three more bombs and then followed his party. +The white mist swallowed them. The bombers ran, stumbled and ran again, +eager to reach the shelter of their own parapet before the shaken enemy +should recover and begin sweeping the ground with his machine guns. + +Sacobie and Dick were the first to get into the trench. Then came Sergt. +Hammer and Lieut. Scammell, followed close by Lieut. Harvey and his +party. By that time the German machine guns were going full blast. + +"Are Sergt. Starkley and Private Sill here?" + +"Don't see either of 'em, sir," Sergt. Hammer said in reply to Mr. +Scammell's question. + +"Perhaps they got here before any of us and beat it for their dugout," +said Mr. Scammell. "Dick, you go along the trench and have a look for +them. If they aren't in, come back and report to me. Wait right here for +me, mind you--on _this_ side of the parapet. Get that?" + +Then the officer spoke a few hurried words to Sergt. Hammer, a few to +the sentry, and went over the sandbags like a snake. Hammer went out of +the trench at the same moment; and Frank Sacobie took one glance at the +sentry and followed Hammer like a shadow. The mist lay close and cold +and almost as wet as rain over that puddled waste. + +Mr. Scammell found Peter and Hiram about ten yards in front of the gap +in our wire; the private was unhurt and the sergeant unconscious. Sill +had his tall friend on his back and was crawling laboriously homeward. + +"Whiz-bang," he informed Mr. Scammell. "It got Pete bad, in the leg. I +heard him grunt and soon found him." + +They regained the trench, picking up Hammer on the way, and sent Peter +out on a stretcher. Sacobie came in at their heels; and no one knew that +he had gone out to the rescue. + +That happened on Christmas morning. Before night the doctors cut off +what little had been left below the knee of Peter's right leg. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + PETER'S ROOM IS AGAIN OCCUPIED + + +LIFE was very dull round Beaver Dam after Peter had gone away. John and +Constance Starkley and Flora and Emma felt that every room of the old +house was so full of memories of the three boys that they could not +think of anything else. John Starkley worked early and late, but a sense +of numbness was always at his heart. There were times when he glowed +with pride and even when he flamed with anger, but he was always +conscious of the weight on his heart. His grief was partly for his +wife's grief. + +He awoke suddenly very early one morning and heard his wife sobbing +quietly. That had happened several times before, and sometimes she had +been asleep and at other times awake. Now she was asleep, lonely for her +boys even in her dreams. He thought of waking her; and then he reflected +that, if awake, she would hide her tears, which now perhaps were giving +her some comfort in her dreams. + +But he could not find his own sleep again. He lighted a candle, put on a +few clothes and went downstairs to the sitting room. There were books +everywhere, of all sorts, in that comfortable and shabby room. The brown +wooden clock on the shelf above the old Franklin stove ticked drearily. +It marked ten minutes past two. Mr. Starkley dipped into a volume of +Charles Lever and wondered why he had ever laughed at its impossible +anecdotes and pasteboard love scenes. He tried a report of the New +Brunswick Agricultural Society and found that equally dry. A flyleaf of +Treasure Island held his attention, for on it was penned in a round +hand, "Flora with Dick's love, Christmas, 1914." + +"He was only a boy then," murmured the father. "Less than a year ago he +was only a boy, and now he is a man, knowing hate and horror and +fatigue--a man fighting for his life. They are all boys! Henry and +Peter--Peter with his grand farm and fast mares, and his eyes like +Connie's." + +John Starkley got out of his chair, trembling as if with cold. He walked +round the room, clasping his hands before him. Then he took the candle +from the table and held it up to the shelf above the stove. There stood +photographs of his boys, in uniform. He held the little flame close to +each photograph in turn. + +"Three sons," he said. "Three good sons--and not one here now!" + +A cautious rat-tat on the glass of one of the windows brought him out of +his reveries with a start. He went to the window without a moment's +hesitation, held the candle high and saw a face looking in at him that +he did not recognize for a moment. It was a frightened and shamed face. +The eyes met his for a fraction of a second and then shifted their +glance. + +"James Hammond!" exclaimed Mr. Starkley. "Of all people!" + +He set the candle on the table and pushed up the lower sash of the +window, letting in a gust of cold wind that extinguished the light +behind him. He could see the bulk of his untimely visitor against the +vague starlight. + +"Come in, James," he said. "By the window or the door, as you like." + +"Thank you, Mr. Starkley," said Hammond in guarded tones. "The window +will do. No strangers about, I suppose? Just the family?" + +"Only my wife and daughters," replied the farmer, and turned to relight +the candle. + +Jim Hammond got quickly across the sill, pulled the sash down, and after +it the green-linen shade. He stood near the wall, twirling his hat in +his hand and shuffling his feet. When Mr. Starkley turned to him, he +swallowed hard, glanced up and then as swiftly down again. + +"Queer time to make a call," said Hammond at last. "Near three o'clock, +Mr. Starkley. I was glad to see your light at the window. I was scared +to tap on the window, at first, for fear you'd send me away." + +"Send you away?" queried the farmer. "Why did you fear that, Jim? You, +or any other friend, are welcome at this house at any hour of the day or +night. But I must admit that your visit has taken me by surprise. I +thought you were far away from this peaceful and lonely country, my +boy--far away in Flanders." + +The blood flushed over Jim's face, and he stared at the farmer. + +"You thought I was in Flanders," he said. "In Flanders--me! So you don't +know about me, Mr. Starkley? Peter didn't tell you about me? +That--that's impossible. Don't you know--and every one else?" + +"I don't know what you are talking about," replied Mr. Starkley, as he +pushed Jim into an armchair. "I can see that you are tired, however, and +in distress of some sort. Why are you here, Jim--and why are you not in +uniform? Tell me--and if I can help you in any way you may be sure that +I will. Rest here and I'll get you something to eat. I did not notice at +first how bad you look, Jim." + +"Never mind the food!" muttered young Hammond. "I'm not hungry, sir--not +to matter, that is. But I'm dog-tired. I've been hiding about in the +woods and in people's barns for a long time--and walking miles and +miles. I--you say you don't know--I am a deserter--and worse." + +"You didn't go to France with your regiment? You deserted?" + +"I didn't go anywhere with it. Why didn't Peter tell you? I came home on +pass--and gave them the slip. I--Peter was sent here to fetch me back. +And he didn't tell you! And you thought I was in France! I came here +because I was ashamed to go home." + +He suddenly leaned forward in his chair, with his elbows on his knees, +and covered his face with his hands. His shoulders shook. John Starkley +continued to gaze at him in silence for a minute or two, far too amazed +and upset and bewildered to know what to say or do. He felt a great pity +for the young man, whom he had always known as a prosperous and +self-confident person. To see him thus--shabby, weary, ashamed and +reduced to tears--was a most pitiful thing. A deserter! A coward! But +even so, who was he to judge? Might not his sons have been like this, +except for the mercy of God? Even now any one of his boys, or all three +of them, might be in great need of help and kindness. He went over and +laid a hand gently on his visitor's shoulder. + +"I don't know what you have done, exactly, or anything at all of your +reason for doing it, but you are the son of a friend of mine and have +been a comrade of one of my sons," he said. "Look upon me as a friend, +Jim. You say you are a deserter. Well, I heard you. It is bad--but here +is my hand." + +Jim Hammond raised his head and looked at Mr. Starkley with a +tear-stained face. + +"Do you mean that?" he asked; and at the other's nod he grasped the +extended hand. + +Mr. Starkley asked him no more questions then, but brought cold ham from +the pantry and cider from the cellar and ate and drank with him. The +visitor's way with the food and drink told its own story and sharpened +the farmer's pity. They went upstairs on tiptoe. + +"This is Peter's room," said Mr. Starkley. "Sleep sound and as long as +you please--till dinner time, if you like. And don't worry, Jim." + +The farmer returned to his own room and found his wife sleeping quietly. +He wakened her and told her of young Hammond's visit and all that he +knew of his story. + +"I am glad you took him in," she said. "We must help him for our boys' +sakes, even if he is a deserter." + +"Yes," answered Mr. Starkley, "we must help him through his shame and +trouble--and then he may right the other matter of his own free will. +We'll give him a chance, anyway." + +It was dinner time when Jim Hammond awoke from his sleep of physical and +nervous exhaustion. He was puzzled to know where he was at first, but +the memory of the night's adventure came to him, bringing both shame and +relief. He had no watch to tell him the time, and there was no clock in +the room. He had brought nothing with him--not a watch, or a dollar, or +a shirt--nothing except his guilt and his shame. He flinched at the +thought of meeting Mrs. Starkley and the girls. + +A knock sounded on the door, and John Starkley looked in and wished him +good morning. "If you get up now, Jim, you'll be in time for dinner," he +said. "Here is hot water and a shaving kit--and a few duds of Henry's +and Peter's you can use if you care to. Set your mind at rest about the +family, Jim. I have told my wife all that I know myself, and she feels +as I do. As for the girls--well, I will let them know as much as is +necessary. We mean to help you to get on your feet again, Jim." + +The deserter shaved with care, dressed in his own seedy garments and +went slowly downstairs. He entered the kitchen. Mrs. Starkley and Flora +were there, busy about the midday dinner. They looked up at him and +smiled as he appeared in the doorway, but their eyes and Flora's quick +change of color told him of the quality of their pity. They would feel +the same, he knew, for any broken and drunken tramp in the ditch. But he +was a more despicable thing than a drunken tramp. He was a deserter, a +coward. They knew that of him, for he saw it in their eyes that tried to +be so frank and kind; and that was not the worst of him. He could not +advance from the threshold or meet their glances again. + +Mrs. Starkley went to the young man quickly and, taking his hand in +hers, drew him into the room. Flora came forward and gave him her hand +and said she was glad to see him; and then Emma came in from the dining +room and said, "Hello, Mr. Hammond! I hope you can stay here a long +time; we are very lonely." + +His heart was so shaken by those words that his tongue was suddenly +loosened. He looked desperately, imploringly round, and his face went +red as fire and then white as paper. + +"I'll stay--if you'll let me--until I pick up my nerve again," he said +quickly and unsteadily. "Keep me hidden here from Stanley and my folks. +I'll work like a nigger. I am a deserter, as you all know--and I know +that Peter didn't tell you so. I'd do anything for him, after that. I'm +a runaway soldier, but it wasn't because I was afraid to fight. I'll +show you as soon as I'm fit--I'll go and fight. It was my beastly temper +and drink that did for me. I've been near crazy since. But I'll show you +my gratitude some day--if you give me a chance now to work round to +feeling something like a man again." + +Flora and Emma were tongue-tied by the stress of their emotions. They +could only gaze at their guest with tear-dimmed eyes. But Mrs. Starkley +went close to him and put a hand on each of his drooped shoulders. + +"Of course, my dear boy," she said. "You are only a boy, Jim, a year or +two younger than Henry, I think. Trust us to help you." + +During dinner they talked about the country, the war, the weather and +the stock--about almost everything but Jim Hammond's affairs. + +"What do you want me to do this afternoon?" asked Jim when the meal was +over. "I don't know much about farm work, but I can use an axe and can +handle horses." + +"I was ploughing this morning; and this may be our last day before the +frost sets in hard," said Mr. Starkley. "What about hitching Peter's +mares to a second plow?" + +"Suit me fine," said Jim. + +It was a still, bright October afternoon, with a glow in the sunshine, a +smell of fern and leaf in the air and a veil of blue mist on the farther +hills. Frosts had nipped the surface of things lightly a score of times +but had not yet struck deep. Jim Hammond, in a pair of Peter's +long-legged boots, guided a long plough behind Peter's black and sorrel +mares. The mares pulled steadily, and the bright plough cut smoothly +through the sod of the old meadow. Over against the fir woods on the far +side of the meadow John Starkley went back and forth behind his grays. + +Jim rested frequently at the end of a furrow, for he was not in the pink +of condition. He noticed, for the first time in his life, the faint +perfume of the turned loam and torn grass roots. He liked it. His +furrows, a little uneven at first, became straighter and more even until +they were soon almost perfect. + +As the red sun was sinking toward the western forests, Emma appeared, +climbing over the rail fence from a grove of young red maples. She +carried something under one arm. She waved a hand to her father but came +straight to Jim. He stopped the mares midway the furrow. + +"I made these gingernuts myself," said Emma, holding out an uncovered +tin box to him. "See, they are still hot. Have some." + +He accepted two and found them very good. The girl looked over his work +admiringly and told him she had never seen straighter furrows except a +few of Peter's ploughing. Then she warned him that in half an hour she +would blow a horn for him to stop and went across to her father with +what was left of the gingernuts. Hammond went on unwinding the old sod +into straight furrows until the horn blew from the house. + +After supper he played cribbage with Mr. Starkley; and that night he +slept soundly and without dreaming. He awoke early enough to do his +share of the feeding and milking before breakfast. The ploughs worked +again that day, but the next night brought a frost that held tight. + +The days went by peacefully for Jim Hammond. He never went on the +highway or away from Beaver Dam and Peter's place. Sometimes, when +people came to the house, he sat by himself in his room upstairs. He did +his share of all the barn work, twice a week helped Mrs. Starkley and +the girls with the churning and cut cordwood and fence rails every day. +He never talked much, but at times his manner was almost cheerful. And +so the days passed and October ran into November. Snow came and letters +from France and England. The family treated him like one of themselves, +with never a question to embarrass him or a word to hurt him. He heard +news of his family occasionally, but never tried to see them. + +"They think I am somewhere in the States, hiding--or that's what father +thinks," he said to Flora. "Some day I'll write to mother--from France." + +December came and Christmas. Jim kept house that day while the others +drove to Stanley and attended the Christmas service in the church on the +top of the long hill. A week later a man in a coonskin coat drove up to +the kitchen door. Jim recognized him through the window as the +postmaster of Stanley and retired up the back stairs. John Starkley, who +had just come in from the barns, opened the door. + +"A cablegram for you, Mr. Starkley," said the postmaster. "It was wired +through from Fredericton." + +He held out the thin envelope. Mr. Starkley stared at it, but did not +move. His eyes narrowed, and his face looked suddenly old. + +"No call to be afraid of it," said the postmaster, who was also the +telegraph operator. "I received it and know what's in it." + +Mr. Starkley took it then and tore it open. + +"Peter wounded. Doing fine. Dick Starkley" is what he read. He sighed +with relief and called to Mrs. Starkley and the girls. Then he invited +the man from Stanley in to dinner, saying he would see to the horse in a +minute. + +"You can't expect much better news than that from men in France," John +Starkley said to his wife. "Wounded and doing fine--why, that's better +than no news, by a long shot. He will be safe out of the line now for +weeks, perhaps for months. Perhaps he will even get to England. He is +safe at this very minute, anyway." + +He excused himself, went upstairs and told Jim Hammond the news. + +"That is twice for Peter already," he said, "once right at home and once +in Flanders. If this one isn't any worse than the first, we have nothing +to worry about." + +"I hope it is just bad enough to give him a good long rest," said Jim in +a low voice. + +The postmaster stayed to dinner, and Emma smuggled roast beef and +pudding up to Jim in his bedroom. No sooner had that visitor gone than +another drove up. This other was Vivia Hammond; and once more Jim +retired to his room. Vivia had heard of the cablegram, but nothing of +its import. Her face was white with anxiety. + +"What is it?" she cried. "The cable--what is it about?" + +"Peter is right as rain--wounded but doing fine," said John. + +Vivia cried and then laughed. + +"I love Peter, and I don't care who knows it!" she exclaimed. "I hope he +has lost a leg, so they'll have to send him home. That sounds +dreadful--but I love him so--and what does a leg matter?" She turned to +Mrs. Starkley. "Did he ever tell you he loved me?" she asked. + +"He didn't have to tell us," answered Mrs. Starkley, smiling. + +"He does! He does!" exclaimed the girl, and then began to cry again; and +Jim, imprisoned upstairs, wished she would go home. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + DAVE HAMMER GETS HIS COMMISSION + + +BY the middle of January, 1916, Peter was in London again, now minus one +leg but otherwise in the pink of condition. Davenport, with his crutch +and stick and shadowing valet, visited him daily in hospital. He and +Peter wrote letters to Beaver Dam--and Peter wrote a dozen to Stanley. + +Capt. Starkley-Davenport had power. Warbroken and propped between his +crutch and stick, still he was powerful. A spirit big enough to animate +three strong men glowed in his weak body, and he went after the medical +officers, nursing sisters and V. A. D.'s of that hospital like a +lieutenant general looking for trouble. He saw that Peter received every +attention, and then that every other man in the hospital received the +same--and yet he was as polite as your maiden aunt. Several medical +officers, including a colonel, jumped on him--figuratively +speaking--only to jump back again as if they had landed on spikes. + +As soon as he regarded Peter as fit to be moved he took him to his own +house. There the queer servants waited on Peter day and night in order +of seniority. They addressed him as "Sergt. Peter, sir." + +Over in Flanders things had bumped and smashed along much as usual since +Christmas morning. Mr. Scammell had read his promotion in orders and the +London Gazette, had put up his third star and had gone to brigade as +staff captain, Intelligence; and David Hammer, with the acting rank of +sergeant major, carried on in command of the battalion scouts. Hiram +Sill had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his work on +Christmas morning and the two chevrons of a corporal for his work in +general. A proud man was Corp. Sill, with that ribbon on his chest. + +The changes and chances of war had also touched Dick Starkley and Frank +Sacobie. Lieut. Smith had persuaded Dick to leave the scouts and become +his platoon sergeant; Sacobie was made an acting sergeant--and the night +of that very day, while he was displaying his new chevrons in No Man's +Land, he received a wound in the neck that put him out of the line for +two weeks. + +Henry Starkley--a captain now--managed to visit the battalion about +twice a month. It was in the fire trench that he found Dick one mild and +sunny morning of the last week of February. The brothers grinned +affectionately and shook hands. + +"Peter has sailed for home, wooden leg and all," said Henry. "I got a +letter yesterday from Jack Davenport. Except for the sneaking Hun +submarines, Peter is fairly safe now." + +"I hope he makes the farm," said Dick. "He was homesick for it every +minute and working out crop rotations on the backs of letters every +night, in the line and out--except when he was fighting." + +"There was something about you in Jack's letter. He says that offer +still stands, and he seems as anxious as ever about it." + +Dick sat down on the fire step, thrust out his muddy feet on the duck +boards and gazed at them. He scratched himself meditatively in several +places. + +"I'd like fine to be an officer," he said at last. "Almost any one +would. But I don't want to leave this bunch just now. Jack's crowd will +want officers in six months just as much as now--maybe more; and if I'm +lucky--still in fighting shape six months from now--I'll be better able +to handle the job." + +"I'll write that to Jack," said Henry. "He will understand--and your +platoon commander will be pleased. He and the adjutant talked to me +to-day as if something were coming to you--a D. C. M., I think. What +happened to your first adjutant, Capt. Long, by the way?" + +"Long's gone west," replied Dick briefly. + +"I'm sorry to hear that. Shell get him?" + +"No, sniper. He took one chance too many." + +"I heard at the brigade on my way in that your friend, Dave Hammer, has +his commission. I wonder if they have told him yet." + +"Good! Let's go along and tell him. He is sleeping to-day." + +They found Dave in his little dugout, with the mud of last night's +expedition still caked on his person from heel to head. His blankets +were cast aside, and he lay flat on his back and snored. His snores had +evidently driven the proprietors of the other bunks out of that confined +place, for he was alone. His muddy hands clasped and unclasped. He +ceased his snoring suddenly and gabbled something very quickly and +thickly in which only the word "wire" was recognizable. Then he jerked +up one leg almost to his chin and shot it straight again with terrific +force. + +"He is fighting in his dreams, just the way my old dog Snap used to," +said Dick. "We may as well wake him up, for he isn't resting." + +"Go to it--and welcome," said Henry. "It's an infantry job." + +Dick stooped and cried, "Hello, Dave!" but the sleeper only twitched an +arm. "Wake up!" roared Dick. "Wake up and go to sleep right!" The +sleeper closed his mouth for a second but did not open his eyes. He +groaned, muttered something about too much light and began to snore +again. Dick put a hand on his shoulder--and in the same breath of time +he was gripped at wrist and throat with fingers like iron. Grasping the +hand at his throat, Dick pulled a couple of fingers clear. Then the +sleeper closed his mouth again and opened his eyes wide. + +"Oh, it's you, Dick!" he said. "Sorry. Must have been dreaming." + +He sat up and shook hands with Henry. When he heard of his promotion he +blushed and got out of his bunk. + +"That's a bit of cheering news," he said "I'll have a wash on the +strength of that, and something to eat. Wish we were out, and I'd give a +little party. Wonder if I can raise a set of stars to wear to-night, +just for luck." + +Henry went away half an hour later, and Dick returned to the fire +trench. Capt. Keen, the adjutant, came looking for Hammer, found him +still at his toilet and congratulated him heartily on his promotion. + +"Come along and feed with me, if you have had enough sleep," said the +adjutant. "The colonel wants to see you. He had a talk with you +yesterday, didn't he--about to-night's job?" + +"Yes, sir; and it will be a fine job, if the weather is just right. +Looks now as if it might be too clear, but we'll know by sundown. I was +dreaming about it a while ago. We were in, and I had a big sentry by the +neck when Dick Starkley woke me up. I had grabbed Dick." + +"The colonel is right," said Capt. Keen. "You're working too hard, +Hammer, and you're beginning to show it; your eyes look like the +mischief. This fighting in your sleep is a bad sign." + +"The whole army could do with a rest, for that matter," replied Hammer, +"but who would go on with the work? What I am worrying about now is rank +badges. I'd like to doll up a bit for to-night." + +They went back to the sandbagged cellar under the broken farmhouse that +served as headquarters for whatever battalion held that part of the +line. On their way they had borrowed an old jacket with two stars on +each sleeve from Lieut. Smith; and in that garment Dave Hammer appeared +at the midday meal. The colonel, the medical officer, the padre and the +quartermaster were there. They congratulated Dave on his promotion, and +the colonel placed him at his right hand at the table on an upended +biscuit box. + +The fare consisted of roast beef and boiled potatoes, a serviceable +apple pie and coffee. The conversation was of a general character until +after the attack on the pie--an attack that was driven to complete +success only by the padre, who prided himself on the muscular +development of his jaws. The commanding officer, somewhat daunted in +spirit by the pastry, looked closely at the lieutenant. + +"You need a rest, Hammer," he said. "Keen, didn't I tell you yesterday +that Hammer must take a rest? Doc, just slant an eye at this young +officer and give me your opinion. Doesn't he look like all-get-out?" + +"Looks like get-out-of-the-front-line to me, sir," said the medical +officer. "A couple of weeks back would set him on his feet. You say the +word, sir, and I'll send him back this very day." + +"But the show!" exclaimed Hammer. "I must go out to-night, sir!" + +"Hammer is the only officer with his party, sir," said Capt. Keen to the +colonel. "As you know, sir, we held the organization down this time to +only one officer with each of our four parties--because officers are not +very plentiful with us just now." + +"That's the trouble!" exclaimed the colonel. "They hem and haw and chew +the rag over our recommendations for commissions and keep sending us +green officers from England who don't know the fine points of the game. +So here we are forced to let Hammer go out to-night, when he should be +in his blankets. But back he goes to-morrow!" + +Dave had intended to sleep that afternoon, but the excitement caused by +the news of his promotion made it impossible. He who had never missed a +minute's slumber through fear of death was set fluttering at heart and +nerves by the two worsted "pips" on each sleeve of his borrowed jacket. +The coat was borrowed--but the right to wear the stars was his, his very +own, earned in Flanders. He toured the trenches--fire, communication and +support--feeling that his stars were as big as pie plates. + +Sentries, whose bayonet-tipped rifles leaned against the parapet, +saluted and then grasped his hand. Subalterns and captains hailed him as +a brother; and so did sergeants, with a "sir" or two thrown in. As Dave +passed on his embarrassed but triumphant way down the trench his heart +pounded as no peril of war had ever set it pounding. No emperor had ever +known greater ache and uplift of glory than this grand conflagration in +the heart and brain of Lieut. David Hammer, Canadian Infantry. + +He visited his scouts; and they seemed as pleased at his "pips" as if +each one of them had got leave to London. Even Sergt. Frank Sacobie's +dark and calm visage showed flickers of emotion. Corp. Hiram Sill, D. C. +M., who visioned everything in a large and glowing style, saw in his +mind's eye the King in Buckingham Palace agreeing with some mighty +general, all red and gold and ribbons, that this heroic and deserving +young man should certainly be granted a commission for the fine work he +was doing with the distinguished scouts of that very fine regiment. + +"I haven't a doubt that was the way of it," said Old Psychology. "People +with jobs like that are trained from infancy to grasp details; and I bet +King George has the name of everyone of us on the tip of his tongue. You +can bet your hat he isn't one to give away Distinguished Conduct Medals +without knowing what he is about." + +Hiram joined in the laughter that followed his inspiring statements; not +that he thought he had said anything to laugh at, but merely to be +sociable. + +That "show" was to be a big one--a brigade affair with artillery +coöperation. The battalion on the right was to send out two parties, one +to bomb the opposite trench and the other to capture and demolish a +hostile sap head--and together to raise Old Ned in general and so hold +as much of the enemy's attention as possible from the main event. The +battalion on the left was to put on an exhibition of rifle, machine-gun +and trench-mortar fire that would assuredly keep the garrison opposite +occupied with its own affairs. + +As for the artillery, it had already worked through two thirds of its +elaborate programme. Four nights ago it had put on a shoot at two points +in the hostile wire and front line, three hundred yards apart, short but +hot. Then it had lifted to the support and reserve trenches. Three +nights ago it had done much the same things, but not at the same hours, +and on a wider frontage. The enemy, sure of being raided, had turned on +his lights and his machine guns on both occasions--on nothing. He could +do nothing then toward repairing his wire, for after our guns had +churned up his entanglements our machine guns played upon the scene and +kept him behind his parapet. The batteries had been quiet two nights +ago, and Fritz, expecting a raid in force, had lost his nerve entirely. +Our eighteen pounders had lashed him at noon the next day, and again at +sunset and again at eleven o'clock; and so he had sat up all night again +with his nerves. + +At four o'clock in the afternoon of this day of Dave Hammer's promotion +the batteries went at it again, smashing wire and parapets with field +guns and shooting up registered targets farther back with heavier metal. +When hostile batteries retaliated, we did counter-battery work with such +energy and skill that we soon had the last word in the argument. The +deeds of the gunners put the infantry in high spirits. + +The afternoon grew misty; shortly after five o'clock there was a shower. +At half past seven scouts went out from the 26th and the battalion on +the right and, returning, reported that the wire was nicely ripped and +chewed. At eight the battalion on the left put on a formidable +trench-mortar shoot, which quite upset the nerve-torn enemy. Then all +was at rest on that particular piece of the western front--except for +the German illumination--until half past twelve. + +Half past twelve was Zero Hour. A misty rain was seeping down from a +slate-gray sky. Six lieutenants in the fire trench of two battalions +took their eyes from the dials of their wrist watches, said "time" to +their sergeants and went over, with their men at their heels and elbows. +The two larger parties from our battalion were to get into the opposite +trench side by side, there separate one to the left and one to the +right, do what they could in seven minutes or until recalled, then get +out and run for home with their casualties--if any. They were to pass +their prisoners out as they collared them. The smaller parties were made +up of riflemen, stretcher bearers and escorts for the prisoners. The +raiding parties were commanded by Mr. Hammer, with Sergt. Sacobie second +in command, and Mr. Smith, with Sergt. Richard Starkley second in +command. Corp. Hiram Sill was in Hammer's crowd. + +Captain Scammell from brigade, the colonel and the adjutant stood in the +trench at the point of exit. Suddenly they heard the dry, smashing +reports of grenades through the chatter of machine-gun fire on the left. +The bombs went fast and furious, punctuated by the crack of rifles and +bursts of pistol fire. S. O. S. rockets went up from the German +positions; and, as if in answer to those signals, our batteries laid a +heavy barrage on and just in rear of the enemy's support trenches. The +colonel flashed a light on his wrist. + +"They have been in four minutes," he said. + +At that moment a muddy figure with blackened face and hands and a slung +rifle on his back scrambled into the trench, turned and pulled something +over the parapet that sprawled at the colonel's feet. + +"Here's one of them, sir; and there's more coming," said the man of mud. +"Ah! Here's another. Boost him over, you fellers." + + [Illustration: "'HERE'S ONE OF THEM, SIR; AND THERE'S MORE + COMING,' SAID THE MAN OF MUD."] + +Into the trench tumbled another Fritz, and then a third, and then a +Canadian, and then two more prisoners and the third Canadian. + +"Five," said the last of the escort. "Us three started for home with +eight, but something hit the rest of 'em--T-M bomb, I reckon." + +"Sure it was," said the Canadian who had arrived first. "Don't I know? I +got a chunk of it in my leg." He stooped and fumbled at the calf of his +right leg. The adjutant turned a light on him, and the man extended his +hand, dripping with blood. + +"You beat it for the M. O., my lad," said the colonel. + +Five more prisoners came in under a guard of two; and then six more of +the raiders arrived, two of whom were carrying Lieut. Smith. The +lieutenant's head was bandaged roughly, and the dressing was already +soaked with blood. + +"We did them in, sir," he said thickly to the colonel. "Caught them in +bunches--and bombed three dugouts." + +He was carried away, still muttering of the fight. By that time the +majority of the other parties were in. Several of the men were +wounded--and they had brought their dead with them, three in number. The +Germans had turned their trench mortars on their own front line from +their support trenches. + +"They're not all in yet," said Capt. Keen. "Hammer isn't in." + +Just then Dick Starkley slid into the trench. + +"That you, Dick? Did you see Mr. Hammer? Or Frank Sacobie? Or Bruce +McDonald?" + +"I have McDonald--but some one's got to help me lift him over," said +Dick breathlessly. "Heavy as a horse--and hit pretty bad!" + +Two men immediately slipped over the top and hoisted big McDonald into +the trench. Hiram Sill put a hand on Dick's shoulder. + +"Dave Hammer and Sacobie," he whispered, "are still out. Hadn't we +better--" + +"Right," said Dick. "Come on out." He turned to Capt. Scammell. "Please +don't let the guns shorten for a minute or two, sir; Sill and I have to +go out again." + +Without waiting for an answer they whipped over the sandbags. Hiram was +back in two minutes. He turned on the fire step and received something +that Dick and Frank Sacobie lifted over to him. It was Dave Hammer, +unconscious and breathing hoarsely, with his eyes shut, his borrowed +tunic drenched with mud and blood and one of his bestarred sleeves shot +away. Capt. Scammell swayed against the colonel and, for a second, put +his hand to his eyes. + +"Steady, lad, steady," said the colonel in a queer, cracked voice. +"Keen, tell the guns to drop on their front line with all they've +got--and then some." + +To the whining and screeching of our shells driving low overhead and the +tumultuous chorus of their exploding, passed the undismayed soul of +Lieut. David Hammer of the Canadian Infantry. + +Heedless of the coming and going of the shells and the quaking of the +parapet, Sacobie sat on the fire step with his hands between his knees +and stared fixedly at nothing; but Hiram Sill and young Dick Starkley +wept without thought of concealment, and their tears washed white +furrows down their blackened faces. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + PETER WRITES A LETTER + + +IN March, 1916, Sergt. Peter Starkley got back to his own country, +bigger in the chest and an inch taller than when he had gone away. He +walked a little stiffly on his right foot, it is true--but what did that +matter? His letters to the people at home had, by intention, given them +only a vague idea of the possible date of his arrival. They knew that he +was coming, that he was well, and that his new leg was such a +masterpiece of construction that he had danced on it in London on two +occasions. Otherwise he was unannounced. + +He went to the town of Stanley first and left his baggage in the freight +shed at the siding. With his haversack on his shoulder and a stout stick +in his right hand, he set out along the white and slippery road. Before +he got to the bridge a two-horse sled overtook him, and the driver, an +elderly man whom he did not know, invited him to climb on. Peter +accepted the invitation with all the agility at his command. + +"You step a mite lame on your right leg," said the driver. + +"That's so," replied Peter, smiling. + +"Been soldierin', hey? See any fight-in'?" + +"Yes, I've been in Flanders." + +"That so? I've got a boy in the war. Smart boy, too. They give him a job +right in England. He wears spurs to his boots, he does; and it ain't +everyone kin wear them spurs, he writes me. This here war ain't all in +Flanders. We had some shootin' round here about a year back out Pike's +Settlement way. A young feller in soldier uniform was drivin' along, and +some one shot at him from the woods. That's what _he_ said, but my +boy--that was afore he went to the war--says like enough he shot himself +so's to git out of goin'. He's a smart lad--that's why they give him a +job in England. Army Service Corps, he is--so I reckon maybe he's right +about that feller shootin' himself." + +"What's his name?" asked Peter quietly. + +"Starkley. Peter Starkley from Beaver Dam." + +"I'm asking the name of that smart son of yours." + +"Gus Todder's his name--Gus Todder, junior. Maybe you know him," was the +reply. + +"No, but I've got his number," said Peter. "You tell him so in the next +letter you write him. Tell him that Sergt. Peter Starkley of the 26th +Canadian Infantry Battalion will be glad to see him when he comes home; +tell him not to cut himself on those spurs of his in the meantime; and +you'd better advise him to warn _his father_ not to shoot his mouth off +in future to military men about things he is ignorant of. Here's where I +get off. Thanks for the lift." + +Peter left the sled, but turned at the other's voice and stood looking +back at him. + +"I didn't get the hang of all that you was sayin'," said Todder. He was +plainly disconcerted. + +"Never mind; your son will catch the drift of it," replied Peter. "I am +too happy about getting home to be fussy about little things, but don't +chat quite so freely with every returned infantryman you see about your +son's smartness. You call it smartness--but the fellows up where I left +my right leg have another name for it." + +Opening the white gate, he went up the deep and narrow path between snow +banks to the white house. At the top of the short flight of steps that +led to the winter porch that inclosed the front door, he looked over his +shoulder and saw Todder still staring at him. Peter grinned and waved +his hand, then opened the door of the porch. + +As he closed the door behind him, the house door opened wide before him. +Vivia stood on the threshold. She stared at him with her eyes very round +and her lips parted, but she did not move or speak. She held her slim +hands clasped before her--clasped so tight that the knuckles were +colorless. Her small face, which had been as pale as her clasped hands +at the first glimpse, turned suddenly as red as a rose; and her eyes, +which had been very bright even to their wonderful depths, were dimmed +suddenly with a shimmer of tears. And for a long time--for ten full +seconds, it may have been--Peter also stood motionless and stared. The +heavy stick slipped from his fingers and fell with a clatter on the +floor of the porch. He stepped forward then and enfolded her in his +khaki-clad arms, safe and sure against the big brass buttons of his +greatcoat; and just then the door of the porch opened, and Mr. Todder +said: + +"I ain't got the hang of yer remarks yet, young feller." + +"Chase yourself away home," replied Peter, without turning his head; and +there was something in the tone of his voice that caused Mr. Todder to +withdraw his head from the porch and to retire, muttering, to his sled. +Vivia had not paid the slightest heed to the interruption. She drew +Peter into the hall. + +"I was afraid," she whispered. "I didn't know how much they had hurt +you, Peter--but I wasn't afraid of that. I should love you just as much +if they had crippled you,--I am so selfish in my love, Peter,--but I was +afraid, at first, that I might see a change in your eyes." + +"There couldn't be a change in my eyes when I look at you, unless I were +blind," said Peter. "Even if I were blind, I guess I could see you. But +I am the same as I was, inside and out--all except a bit of a patent +leg." + +Just then Mrs. Hammond made her discreet appearance, expressed her joy +and surprise at the sight of Peter and ventured a motherly kiss. Mr. +Hammond came in from the store half an hour later and welcomed Peter +cordially. The man had lost weight, and his face was grim. He got Peter +to himself for a few minutes just before supper. + +"Jim is still on the other side the border somewhere, I guess," he said, +"though I haven't heard from him for months. I've kept the shooting +business quiet, Peter--and even about his deserting; but I had to tell +his mother and Vivia that he wasn't any good as a soldier and had gone +away. I made up some kind of story about it. Other people think he's in +France, I guess--even your folks at Beaver Dam. But what do you hear of +Pat? He isn't much of a hand at writing letters, but was well when he +wrote last to his mother." + +"I didn't see him over there, but Henry ran across him and said that he +is doing fine work. He's got his third pip and is attached to +headquarters of one of the brigades of the First Division as a learner. +He has been wounded once, I believe, but very slightly." + +"And I used to think that Pat wasn't much good--too easy-going and +loose-footed," said Mr. Hammond bitterly. "My idea of a man was a +storekeeper. Well, I think of him now, and I stick out my chest--and +then I remember Jim, and my chest caves in again." + +They were interrupted then by Vivia; so nothing more was said about the +deserter. After supper Peter had to prove to the family that he could +dance on his new leg. + +"I'll hitch the grays to the pung," said Mr. Hammond when about eight +o'clock Peter got ready to go. "It's a fine night, and the roads are a +marvel. I'll drive you home." + +"And I am going too," said Vivia. + +Dry maple sticks burned on the hearth of the big Franklin stove in the +sitting room of Beaver Dam. Flora sat at the big table writing a letter +to Dick; John Starkley and Jim Hammond played checkers; and Mrs. +Starkley nodded in a chair by the fire. Emma had gone to bed. John +Starkley had his hand raised and hovering for a master move when a +jangle of bells burst suddenly upon their ears. Flora darted to a +window, and the farmer hastened to the front door; but by the time Flora +had drawn back the curtains and her father had opened the door Jim +Hammond was upstairs and in his room. + +Jim did not light the candle that stood on the window sill at the head +of his bed. He closed the door behind him. The blind was up; starshine +from the world of white and purple and silver without sifted faintly +into the little room. He stood for a minute in the middle of the floor, +listening to the broken and muffled sounds of talk and laughter from the +lower hall. He heard a trill of Vivia's laughter. What had brought Vivia +out again, he wondered. News of Peter, beyond a doubt; and good news, to +judge by the sounds. He seated himself cautiously on the edge of the +bed. + +Now he heard his father's voice. Yes--and John Starkley was laughing. +There was another man's voice, but he could hear only a low note of it +now and then in the confused, happy babble of sound. A door shut--and +then he could not hear anything. He wondered who the third man was and +decided that he probably was some one from the village who had just +arrived home and who had brought messages from Peter. Perhaps, he +thought, Peter was even then on his way from England. + +Jim sat there with the faint shine of the stars falling soft on the rag +carpet at his feet and thought what wonderful people the Starkleys were. +They had taken him in and treated him like one of the family--and like a +white man. Now that Peter was coming home and would be able to help with +the work, he would go away and show John Starkley that he had found his +courage and his manhood. He had made his plans in a general way weeks +before. He would go to another province and enlist in the artillery or +in the infantry under an assumed name; if he "made good," or got killed, +John Starkley would tell all the good he could of him to his family in +Stanley. Already he felt lonely, a dreary chill of homesickness, at the +thought of leaving Beaver Dam. + +A door opened and closed downstairs, but Jim Hammond was too busy with +his thoughts and high resolves to hear the faint sounds. He even did not +hear the feet on the carpeted stairs--and a hand was on the latch of the +door before he knew that some one was about to enter the room. He sat +rigid and stared at the door. + +The door opened and some one entered who bulked large and tall in the +pale half gloom of the room. The visitor halted and turned his face +toward the bed. + +"Who's there?" he asked; and Jim could see the shoulders lower and +advance a little and the whole figure become tense as if for attack. + +"It's me, Peter!" whispered Jim sharply "Shut the door quick!" + +"You! You, Jim Hammond!" said Peter in a voice of amazement and anger. +"What the mischief are you doing here?" Without turning his face from +the bed he shut the door behind him with his heel. "Light the candle and +pull down the shade. Let me see you." + +Jim got to his feet and reached for the shade, but Peter spoke before he +touched it. + +"No! The candle first!" exclaimed Peter, with an edge to his voice. "I +don't trust you in the dark any more than I trust you in the woods." + +Hammond struck a match and lit the candle, then drew down the shade and +turned with his back to the window. His face was pale. "I didn't figure +on your getting home so soon," he said in an unsteady voice. "I didn't +intend to be here. I thought I'd be gone before you came." + +"What are you doing here, anyway?" demanded Peter. "What's the game? +Sitting in my room, on my bed, quite at home, by thunder! And your +father thinks you are in the States. Does my father know you are here?" + +Jim smiled faintly. "Yes, he knows--and all your folks know. I've been +here since about the middle of October, working, and sleeping in this +room every night. My people don't know where I am--but when I get to +France you can tell them. Your father doesn't know that it was I who +fired that shot--and when I found you hadn't told him that, or even that +I was a deserter, I felt it was up to me to do my best for you while you +were away. So I've worked hard and been happy here; and I'll be sorry to +go away--but I must go now that you're home again. Don't tell my people +I'm here, Peter." + +"You have been living here ever since the middle of October, working +here, and your own father and mother don't know where you are?" + +"Your people are the only ones who know." + +Peter eyed him in silence for a minute. + +"Why did you shoot me, Jim?" he asked more gently. + +"How do I know?" exclaimed Hammond. "I was drinking; I was just about +mad with drink. I liked you well enough, Peter,--I didn't want to kill +you,--but the devil was in me. It was drink made me act so bad in St. +John; it was drink made me desert; it was drink that came near making a +murderer of me. That's the truth, Peter--and now I wish you'd go +downstairs, for I don't want my father or Vivia to find me here--or to +know anything about me till I'm in France." + +"Shall I find you here when I come back?" asked Peter. + +"I'll come downstairs as soon as they go," said Hammond. + +Peter was about to leave the room when he suddenly remembered the errand +that had brought him away from the company downstairs. It was a +photograph of himself taken at the age of five years. Vivia had heard of +it and asked for it; and before either of his parents or Flora had been +able to think of a way of stopping him he had started upstairs for it. +Now he found it on the top of a shelf of old books and wiped off the +dust on his sleeve. + +"Vivia wants it," he said, smiling self-consciously. + +He found Flora waiting at the head of the stairs for him. + +"It's all right; I've had a talk with him," he whispered, and when he +reached the sitting room he met the anxious glances of his parents with +a smile and nod that set their immediate anxieties at rest. + +It was past midnight when Vivia and her father drove away. Then Jim came +downstairs, and Peter shook hands with him in the most natural way in +the world. + +"When we met in my bedroom we were both too astonished to shake hands," +explained Peter. + +"You must sleep in Dick's room now, Peter," said Mrs. Starkley. + +"Only for one night," said Jim, trying to smile but making a poor job of +it. "I'll be off to-morrow, now that Peter is home again--just as I +planned all along, you know. I--it isn't the going back to the army I +mind; it is--leaving you people." + +He smiled more desperately than ever. + +Mrs. Starkley and Flora did not dare trust their voices to reply. John +Starkley laid a hand on Jim's shoulder and said, "Go when it suits you, +Jim, and come back when it suits you--and we shall miss you when you are +away, remember that." + +The three men sat up for another hour, talking of Peter's experiences +and Jim's plans. They went upstairs at last, but even then neither Peter +nor Jim could sleep, for the one was restless with happiness and the +other with the excitement of impending change. Peter would see Vivia on +the morrow, and Jim would meet strange faces. Peter had returned to the +security that he had fought and shed his blood for and to the life and +people he loved; Jim's fighting was all before him, and behind him a +disgrace to be outlived. + +After a while Peter got up and went to Jim's room in his pyjamas; he sat +on the edge of Jim's bed, and they talked of the fighting over in +France. + +"I've been thinking about my reënlistment," said Jim, "and I guess I'll +take a chance on my own name. It's my name I want to make good." + +"Sounds risky--but I don't believe it is as risky as it sounds," said +Peter. + +"Not if I go far enough away to enlist--to Halifax or Toronto. There +must be lots of Hammonds in the army. I'll take the risk, anyway. It +isn't likely I'll run across any of the old crowd. None of our old +officers would be hard on me, I guess, if they found me fighting and +doing my duty." + +"Capt. Long is dead. A great many of the old crowd are dead, and others +have been promoted out of the regiment. Remember Dave Hammer?" + +"Yes. If I could ever be as good a soldier as Dave Hammer I think I'd +forget--except sometimes in the middle of the night, maybe--what a mean, +worthless fellow I have been." + +"I'll tell you what, Jim," said Peter suddenly, "I'll write a letter for +you to carry; and if any one spots you over there and is nasty about it, +you go to any officer you know in the old battalion and tell the truth +and show my letter. I guess that will clear your name, Jim, if you do +your duty." + +"You don't mean to put _everything_ in the letter, do you?" + +"Only what is known officially--that you went home from your regiment +here in Canada on pass, started acting the fool and deserted. That is +the charge against you, Jim--desertion. But it is the mildest sort of +desertion, and reënlistment just about offsets it. The same thing done +in France in the face of the enemy is punished--you know how." + +"Yes, I know how it is punished," said Hammond. "You wouldn't worry +about that if you knew as much about how I feel now as I do myself. Of +course I've got to prove it before you'll believe it, Peter, but I'm not +afraid to fight." + +When Peter had gone back to his room, he sat down to write the letter +that Jim Hammond was to carry in his pocket. It was a long letter, and +Peter was a slow writer. He spared no pains in making every point of his +argument perfectly clear. He staked the military reputation of the whole +Starkley family on James Hammond's future behavior as a soldier. He +sealed it with red wax and his great-grandfather's seal and addressed +the envelope to "Any Officer of the 26th Can. Infty. Bn. or of any Unit +of the Can. Army Corps of the B. E. F." When finally he had the letter +done, it was morning. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + THE 26TH "MOPS UP" + + +AFTER Jim Hammond went away from Beaver Dam he wrote to Mrs. Starkley +from Toronto, saying that he had enlisted in a new infantry battalion +and that all was well with him. That was the last news from him, or of +him, to be received at Beaver Dam for many months. + +The war held and crushed and sweated on the western front. Every day +found the Canadians in the grinding and perilous toil of it. In April, +1916, the Second Canadian Division held the ground about St. Eloi +against terrific onslaughts. Then and there were fought those desperate +actions known as the Battles of the Craters. Hiram Sill, D. C. M., now a +sergeant, received a wound that put him out of action for nearly two +months. Dick Starkley was buried twice, once beneath the lip of one of +the craters as it returned to earth after a jump into the air, and again +in his dugout. No bones were broken, but he had to rest for three days. + +Other Canadian divisions moved into the Ypres salient in April--back to +their first field of glory of the year before. That salient of terrible +fame, advanced round the battered city of Ypres like a blunt spearhead +driven into the enemy's positions, will live for centuries after its +trenches are leveled. British soldiers have fallen in their tens of +thousands in and beyond and on the flanks of that city of destruction. +From three sides the German guns flailed it through four desperate +years. Masses of German infantry surged up and broke against its torn +edges, German gas drenched it, liquid fire scorched it, and mines +blasted it. Now and again the edge of that salient was bent inward a +little for a day or a week; but in those four years no German set foot +in that city of heroic ruins except as a prisoner. + +The 26th Battalion celebrated Dominion Day--July 1st--by raiding a +convenient point of the German front line. The assault was made by a +party of twenty-five "other ranks" commanded by two junior officers. It +was supported by the fire of our heavy field guns and heavy and medium +trench mortars. + +Sergts. Frank Sacobie and Hiram Sill were of the party, but Dick +Starkley was not. Dick could not be spared for it from his duties with +his platoon, for he was in acting command during the enforced absence of +Lieut. Smith, who was suffering at a base hospital from a combination of +gas and fever. The men from New Brunswick were observed by the garrison +of the threatened trench while they were still on the wrong side of the +inner line of hostile wire, and a heavy but wild fire was opened on them +with rifles and machine guns. But the raiders did not pause. They passed +through the last entanglement, entered the trench, killed a number of +the enemy and collected considerable material for identification. Their +casualties were few, and no wound was of a serious nature. Hiram Sill +was dizzy and bleeding freely, but cheerful. One small fragment of a +bomb had cut open his right cheek, and another had nicked his left +shoulder. Sacobie carried him home on his back. + +It was a little affair, remarkable only as a new way of celebrating +Dominion Day, and differed only in minor details from hundreds of other +little bursts of aggressive activity on that front. + +Later in the month a Distinguished Service Order, two Military Crosses, +four Distinguished Conduct Medals and five Military Medals were awarded +to the battalion in recognition of its work about St. Eloi. Dick +Starkley and Frank Sacobie each drew a D. C. M. A few days after that +Lieut. Smith returned from Blighty and took back the command of his +platoon from Dick; and at the same time he informed Dick that he was +earmarked for a commission. + +The Canadians began their march from the Ypres salient to the Somme on +September 1, 1916. They marched cheerfully, glad of a change and hoping +for the best. The weather was fine, and the towns and villages through +which they passed seemed to them pleasant places full of friendly +people. They were going to fight on a new front; and, as became +soldiers, it was their firm belief that any change would be for the +better. + +On the 8th of September, while on the march, Dick Starkley was gazetted +a lieutenant of Canadian Infantry. Mr. Smith found his third star in the +same gazette, and Dick took the platoon. Henry visited the battalion a +few days later and presented to the new lieutenant an old uniform that +would do very well until the London tailors were given a chance. Dick +was a proud soldier that day; and an opportunity of showing his new +dignity to the enemy soon occurred. That opportunity was the famous +battle of Courcelette. + +From one o'clock of the afternoon of September 14 until four o'clock the +next morning our heavy guns and howitzers belabored with high explosive +shells the fortified sugar refinery and its strong trenches and the +village of Courcelette beyond. Then for an hour the big guns were +silent. The battalions of the Fourth and Sixth Brigades waited in their +jumping-off trenches before Pozières. The Fifth Brigade, of which the +26th Battalion was a unit, rested in reserve. + +Dawn broke with a clear sky and promise of sunshine and a frosty tingle +in the air. At six o'clock the eighteen-pounder guns of nine brigades of +artillery, smashing into sudden activity, laid a dense barrage on the +nearest rim of the German positions. Four minutes later the barrage +lifted and jumped forward one hundred yards, and the infantry climbed +out of their trenches and followed it into the first German trench. The +fight was on in earnest, and in shell holes, in corners of trenches and +against improvised barricades many great feats of arms were dared and +achieved. A tank led the infantry against the strongly fortified ruins +of the refinery and toppled down everything in its path. + +Lieut. Dick Starkley and his friends gave ear all morning to the din of +battle, wished themselves farther forward in the middle of it and +wondered whether the brigades in front would leave anything for them to +do on the morrow. Messages of success came back to them from time to +time. By eight o'clock, after two hours of fighting, the Canadians had +taken the formidable trenches, the sugar refinery, a fortified sunken +road and hundreds of prisoners. The way was open to Courcelette. + +"If they don't slow up--if they don't quit altogether this very +minute--they'll be crowding right in to Courcelette and doing us out of +a job!" complained Sergt. Hiram Sill. "That's our job, Courcelette +is--our job for to-morrow. They've done what they set out to do, and if +they go ahead now and try something they haven't planned for, well, +they'll maybe bite off more than they can chew. The psychology of it +will be all wrong; their minds aren't made up to that idea." + +"I guess the idee ain't the hull thing," remarked a middle-aged +corporal. "Many a good job has been done kind of unexpectedly in this +war. I reckon this here psychology didn't have much to do with your D. +C. M." + +"That's where you're dead wrong, Henry," said Hiram. "I knew I'd get a +D. C. M. all along, from the first minute I ever set foot in a trench. +My mind and my spirit were all made up for it. I knew I'd get a D. C. M. +just as sure as I know now that I'll get a bar to it--if I don't go west +first." + +Dick, who had joined the group, laughed and smote Hiram on the shoulder. + +"You're dead right!" he exclaimed. "Old Psychology, you're a wonder of +the age! Be careful what you make up your heart and soul and mind to +next or you'll find yourself in command of the division." + +"What do you mean, lieutenant?" asked Sill. + +"You've been awarded the D. C. M. again, that's all!" cried Dick, +shaking him violently by the hand. "You've got your bar, Old Psychology! +Word of it just came through from the Brigade." + +Sergt. Sill blushed and grew pale and blushed again. + +"Say, boys, I'm a proud man," he said. "There are some things you can't +get used to--and being decorated for distinguished conduct on the field +of glory is one of them, I guess. If you'll excuse me, boys,--and you, +lieutenant,--I'll just wander along that old trench a piece and think it +over by myself." + +The way was open to Courcelette. The battalions that had done the work +in a few hours and that, despite a terrific fire from the enemy, had +established themselves beyond their final objective, were anxious to +continue about this business without pause and clean up the strongly +garrisoned town. They had fought desperately in those few hours, +however, and the enemy's fire had taken toll of them, and so they were +told to sit tight in their new trenches; but the common sense of their +assertion that Courcelette itself should be assaulted without loss of +time, before the beaten and astounded enemy could recover, was admitted. + +At half past three o'clock that afternoon the Fifth Brigade received its +orders and instructions and immediately passed them on and elaborated +them to the battalions concerned. By five o'clock the three battalions +that were to make the attack were on their way across the open country, +advancing in waves. German guns battered them but did not break their +alignment. They reached our new trenches and, with the barrage of our +own guns now moving before them, passed through and over the victorious +survivors of the morning's battle. + +The French Canadians and the Nova Scotians went first in two waves. + +Dick Starkley and his platoon were on the right of the front line of the +26th, which was the third wave of attack. "Mopping up" was the +battalion's particular job on this occasion. + +"Mopping up," like most military terms, means considerably more than it +suggests to the ear. The mops are rifles, bombs and bayonets; the things +to be mopped are machine-gun posts still in active operation, bays and +sections of trenches still occupied by aggressive Germans, mined cellars +and garrisoned dugouts. Everything of a menacing nature that the +assaulting waves have passed over or outflanked without demolishing must +be dealt with by the "moppers-up." + +The two lines of the 26th advanced at an easy walk; there was about five +yards between man and man. Each man carried water and rations for +forty-eight hours and five empty sandbags, over and above his arms and +kit. The men kept their alignment all the way up to the edge of the +village. Now and again they closed on the center or extended to right or +left to fill a gap. Wounded men crawled into shell holes or were picked +up and carried forward. Dead men lay sprawled beneath their equipment, +with their rifles and bayonets out thrust toward Courcelette even in +death. The "walking wounded" continued to go forward, some unconscious +or unmindful of their injuries and others trying to bandage themselves +as they walked. + +Col. MacKenzie led them, and beside him walked a company commander. The +two shouted to each other above the din of battle, and sometimes they +turned and shouted back to their men. Other officers walked a few paces +in front of their men. + +A bursting shell threw Dick backward into a small crater that had been +made earlier in the day and knocked the breath out of him for a few +seconds. Frank Sacobie picked him up. The colonel gave the signal to +double, and the right flank of the 26th broke from a walk into a slow +and heavy jog. Sacobie jogged beside Dick. + +"Just a year since we came into the line!" shouted Dick. + +"We were pa'tridge shootin' two years ago to-day!" bawled Sacobie. + +The colonel turned with his back to Courcelette and his face to his men +and yelled at them to come on. "Speed up on the right!" he shouted. "The +left is ahead. The 25th is in already. Shake a leg, boys. If they don't +move quick enough in front, blow right through 'em." + +At the near edge of the village a number of New Brunswickers, including +their colonel, overtook and mingled with the second line of the 22d. Our +barrage was lifted clear of Courcelette by this time and set like a +spouting wall of fire and earth along the far side of it; but the shells +of the enemy continued to pitch into it, heaving bricks and rafters and +the soil of little gardens into the vibrating twilight. Machine guns +streamed their fire upon the invaders from attics and cellars and +sand-bagged windows. The bombs and rifles of the 22d smashed and cracked +just ahead; and on the left, still farther ahead, crashes and bangs and +shouts told all who could hear the whereabouts of Hilliam and his lads +from Nova Scotia. + +Dick Starkley saw a darting flicker of fire from the butt of a broken +chimney beyond a cellar full of bricks and splintered timber. He shouted +to his men, let his pistol swing from its lanyard and threw a bomb. +Then, stooping low, he dashed at the jumble of ruins in the cellar. He +saw his bomb burst beside the stump of chimney. The machine gun +flickered again, and _spat-spat-spat_ came quicker than thought. Other +bombs smashed in front of him, to right and left of the chimney. He got +his right foot entangled in what had once been a baby's crib. + +There he was, staggering on the very summit of that low mound of +rubbish, fairly in line with the aim of the machine gun. Something +seized him by some part of his equipment and jerked him backward. He lit +on his back and slid a yard, then beheld the face of Hiram Sill staring +down at him. + +"Hit?" asked Hiram. + +"Don't think so. No." + +"It's a wonder." + +Five men from Dick's platoon joined them in the ruins. Together they +threw seven grenades. The hidden gun ceased fire. Dick scrambled up and +over the rubbish and around what was left of the shattered chimney that +masked the machine-gun post. In the dim light he saw sprawled shapes and +crouching shapes, and one stooped over the machine gun, working swiftly +to clear it again for action. Dick pistoled the gunner. The three +survivors of that crew put up their hands. Sergt. Sill disarmed them and +told them to "beat it" back to the Canadian lines. Fifty yards on they +found Sacobie and two privates counting prisoners at the mouth of a +dugout. + +"Twenty-nine without a scratch," said Sacobie. + +"Find stretchers for them and send them back with our wounded, under +escort," said Dick. "Put a corporal in charge. Is there a corporal +here?" + +"I'm here, sir." + +"You, Judd? Take them back with as many of our wounded as they can +carry. Two men with you should be escort enough. Hand over the wounded +and fetch up any grenades and ammunition you can get hold of." + +Capt. Smith staggered up to Dick. + +"We are through and out the other side!" he gasped. "Get as many of our +fellows as you can collect quick to stiffen this flank. Dig in beyond +the houses--in line with the 25th. The colonel is up there somewhere." + +He swayed and stumbled against the platoon commander. Dick supported him +with an arm. + +"Hit?" asked Dick. + +"Just what you'd notice," said the captain, straightening himself and +reeling away. + +"Go after him and do what you can for him," said Dick to one of his men. +"Bandage him and then go look for an M. O." + +Dick hurried on toward the forward edge of the village, strengthening +his following as he went. The shelling was still heavy and the noise +deafening, but the hand-to-hand fighting among the houses had lessened. +Dick led his men through one wall of a house that had been hit by a +heavy shell and through the other wall into a little garden. There were +bricks and tiles and iron shards in that garden; and in the middle of +it, untouched, a little arbor of grapevines. Dick passed through the +arbor on his way to the broken wall at the foot of the garden. There +were two benches in it and a small round table. + +Dick went through the arbor in a second, and then he sprang to the +broken crest of the wall. He had scarcely mounted upon it before +something red burst close in front of his eyes. + + * * * * * + +Dick was not astonished to find himself in the old garden at Beaver Dam. +The lilacs were in flower and full of bees and butterflies. He still +wore his shrapnel helmet. It felt very uncomfortable, and he tried to +take it off--but it stuck fast to his head. Even that did not astonish +him. He saw an arbor of grapevines and entered it and sat down on a +bench with his elbows on a small round table. He recognized it as the +arbor he had seen that evening in Courcelette--the evening of September +15. + +"I must have brought it home with me," he reflected. "The war must be +over." + +Flora entered the arbor then and asked him why he was wearing an +officer's jacket. He thought it queer that she had not heard about his +commission. + +"I was promoted on the Somme--no, it was before that," he began, and +then everything became dark. "I can't see," he said. + +"Don't worry about that," replied a voice that was not Flora's. "Your +eyes are bandaged for the time being. They'll be as well as ever in a +few days." + +"I must have been dreaming. Where am I--and what is wrong with me?" + +"You are in No. 2 Canadian General Hospital and have been dreaming for +almost a week. But you are doing very well." + +"What hit me? And have I all my legs and arms?" + +"It must have been a whiz-bang," replied the unknown voice. "You are +suffering from head wounds that are not so serious as we feared and from +broken ribs and a few cuts and gashes. You must drink this and stop +talking." + +Dick obediently drank it, whatever it was. + +"I wish you could give me some news of the battalion, and then I'd keep +quiet for a long time," he said. + +"Do you want me to open and read this letter that your brother left for +you two days ago?" asked the Sister. + +She read as follows: + +"Dear Dick. As your temperature is up and you refuse to know me I am +leaving this note for you with the charming Sister who seems to be your +C. O. just now. She tells me that you will be as fit as a fiddle in a +month or so. Accept my congratulations on your escape and on the battle +of Courcelette. I have written to Beaver Dam about it and cabled that +you will live to fight again. Frank Sacobie and that psychological +sergeant with a D. C. M. and bar are booked for Blighty, to polish up +for their commissions. I called on them after the fight. They are +well--but I can't say that they escaped without a scratch, for they both +looked as if they had been mixing it up with a bunch of wildcats. +Sacobie has a black eye and doesn't know who or what hit him. + +"Do you remember Jim Hammond? He came over to a battalion of this +division with a draft from England about four months ago. He looked me +up one day last week and told me a mighty queer story about himself. I +won't try to repeat it, for I am sure he'll tell it to you himself at +the first opportunity. He is making good, as far as I can see and hear. +Pat Hammond has a job in London now. He was badly gassed about a month +ago. I will get another day's special leave as soon as possible and pay +you another visit. + +"Your affectionate brother, Henry Starkley." + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + FRANK SACOBIE OBJECTS + + +WITHIN ten days of the battle of Courcelette, Lieut. Richard Starkley +was able to see; and twenty days after that he was able to walk. His +walking at first was an extraordinary thing, and extraordinary was the +amount of pleasure that he derived from it. With a crutch under one +shoulder and Sister Gilbert under the other, bandaged and padded from +hip to neck, and with his battered but entire legs wavering beneath him, +he crossed the ward that first day without exceeding the speed limit. +Brother officers in various stages of repair did not refrain from +expressing their opinions of his performance. + +"Try to be back for tea, old son," said a New Zealand major. + +"Are those your legs or mine you're fox-trotting with?" asked an English +subaltern; and an elderly colonel called, "I'll hop out and show you how +to walk in a minute, if you don't do better than that!" + +The colonel laughed, and the inmates of the other beds laughed, and Dick +and Sister Gilbert laughed, for that, you must know, was a very good +joke. The humor of the remark lay in the fact that the elderly colonel +had not a leg to his name. + +Day by day Dick improved in pace and gait, and his activities inspired a +number of his companions to shake an uncertain leg or two. The elderly +colonel organized contests; and the great free-for-all race twice round +the ward was one of the notable sporting events of the war. + +At last Dick was shipped to Blighty and admitted to a hospital for +convalescent Canadian officers. There Capt. J. A. Starkley-Davenport +soon found him. No change that the eye could detect had taken place in +Jack Davenport. His face was as thin and colorless as when Dick had +first seen it; his eyes were just as bright, and their glances as kindly +and intent; his body was as frail and as immaculately garbed. Dick +wondered how one so frail could exist a week without either breaking +utterly or gaining in strength. + +"You're a wonder, Dick!" exclaimed Davenport. + +"It strikes me that you are the wonder," said Dick. + +"But they tell me that you stopped a whiz-bang and will be as fit as +ever, nerve and body, in a little while." + +"I stopped bits of it--but I don't think it actually detonated on me. +All I got was some of the splash. I was lucky!" + +"You were indeed," said the other, with a shadow in his eyes. "I was +lucky, too--though there have been times when I have been fool enough to +wish that I had been left on the field." Then he straightened his thin +shoulders and laughed quietly. "But if I had gone west I should have +missed Frank Sacobie and Hiram Sill. They lunched with me last week and +have promised to turn up on Sunday. You'll be right for Sunday, Dick, +and I'll have a pucka party in your honor." + +"How are they, and what are they up to?" asked Dick. + +"They are at the top of their form, both of them, and up to anything," +replied Davenport. "Your Canadian cadet course is the stiffest thing of +its kind in England, but it doesn't seem to bother those two. Frank is +smarter than anything the Guards can show and is believed to be a rajah; +and Hiram writes letters to Washington urging the formation of an +American division to be attached to the Canadian Corps and suggesting +his appointment to the command of one of the brigades." + +"Those letters must amuse the censors," said Dick with a grin. + +"I imagine they do. Washington hasn't answered yet; and so Hiram is +getting his dander up and is pitching each letter a little higher than +the one before it. Incidentally, he has a great deal to say to our War +Office, and his novel suggestions for developing trench warfare seem to +have awakened a variety of emotions in the brains and livers of a lot of +worthy _brass hats_." + +Dick laughed. "What are his ideas for developing trench warfare?" + +"One is the organization of a shot-gun platoon in every battalion. The +weapon is to be the duck gun, number eight bore, I believe. Hiram +maintains that, used within a range of one hundred and fifty yards, +those weapons would be superior to any in repulsing attacks in mass and +in cleaning up raided trenches. He is a great believer in the deadly and +demoralizing effects of point-blank fire." + +"He is right in that--once you get rid of the parapet." + +"He gets rid of the parapet with the point-blank fire of what he calls +trench cannon--guns, three feet long, mounted so that they can be +carried along a trench by four men; they are to fire ten- or +twelve-pound high explosive shells from the front line smack against the +opposite parapet." + +"It sounds right, too; but so many things sound right that work all +wrong. What are his other schemes?" + +"One has to do with a thundering big six-hooked grapnel, with a wire +cable attached, that is to be shot into the hostile lines from a big +trench mortar and then winched back by steam. He expects his +grapnel--give him power enough--to tear out trenches, machine-gun posts +and battalion headquarters, and bring home all sorts of odds and ends of +value for identification purposes. Can't you see the brigadier stepping +out before brekker to take a look at the night's haul?" + +"My hat! What did the War Office think of that?" + +"An acting assistant something or other of the name of Smythers and the +rank of major was inspired by it to ask Hiram whether he had ever served +in France. Hiram put over a twenty-page narrative of his exploits with +the battalion, with appendixes of maps and notes and extracts from +brigade and battalion orders, and, so far as I know, the major has not +yet recovered sufficiently to retaliate." + +"Well, I hope Frank Sacobie has left the War Office alone." + +"Frank writes nothing and says very little more than that. He seems to +give all his attention to his kit; but I have a suspicion that he is a +deep thinker. However that may be, his taste in dress is astonishingly +good, and his deportment in society is in as good taste as his +breeches." + +"So he has a good time?" + +"He is very gay when he comes up to town," answered Davenport. + +"He deserves a good time, but he can't get it and at the same time doll +himself up, even in uniform, on his pay. How does he do it?" + +"You have guessed it, Dick." + +"I think I have." + +"Then there is no need of my saying much about it. I live on one sixth +of my income. That leaves five sixths for my friends; and often, Dick, +it is the thought of the spending of the five parts that gives me +courage to go on keeping life in this useless body with the one part. +Sometimes a soldier's wife buys food for herself and children, or pays +the rent, with my money; and the lion's share of the pleasure of that +transaction is mine. Sometimes a chap on leave spends a fistful of my +treasury notes on dinners for himself and his girl; and those dinners +give me more pleasure than the ones I eat myself. I haven't much of a +stomach of my own now, you know; and I haven't a girl of my own to take +out to one--even if Wilson would let me go out at night. It is not +charity. I satisfy my own lost hunger for food through the medium of +poor people with good appetites: I have my fun and cut a dash in new +breeches and swagger service jackets through the medium of hard fighting +fellows from France. I am not apologizing, you understand." + +"You needn't," said Dick dryly; and then they both laughed. + +Hiram Sill and Frank Sacobie called on Dick at the hospital soon after +ten o'clock on Sunday morning. They had come up to town the evening +before. The greetings of the three friends were warm. Sacobie's pleasure +at the reunion found no voice, but shone in his eyes and thrilled in the +grip of his hand. Hiram Sill added words to the message of his beaming +face. He expressed delighted amazement at Dick's appearance. + +"I couldn't quite believe it until now," he said. "Neither could you if +you had seen yourself as we saw you when you were picked up. Nothing the +matter with your face, except a dimple or two that you weren't born +with. All your legs and arms still your own. I'd sooner see this than a +letter from Washington. With your luck you'll live to command the +battalion." + +Dick grinned. His greetings to his friends had been as boyishly +impulsive and cheery as ever; yet there was something looking out +through the affection in his eyes that would have puzzled his people in +New Brunswick if they had seen it. There was a question in the look and +a hint of anxiety and perhaps the faintest shade of the airs of a fond +father, a sympathetic judge and a hopeful appraiser. Frank and Hiram +recognized and accepted it without thought or question. The look was +nothing more than the shadow of the habit of responsibility and command. + +Hiram talked about Washington and the War Office, and discussed his +grapnel idea with considerable heat. Frank Sacobie took no part in that +discussion and little in the general conversation. Soon after twelve +o'clock all three set out in a taxicab for Jack Davenport's house. + +The luncheon was successful. The other guests were three women--a cousin +of Jack's on the Davenport side and her two daughters. The host and +Hiram Sill both conversed brilliantly. Frank was inspired to make at +least five separate remarks of some half dozen words each. Dick soon let +the drift of the general conversation escape him, so interested did he +become in the girl on his right. + +Kathleen Kingston seemed to him a strange mixture of shyness and +self-possession, of calmness and vivacity. The coloring of her small +face was wonderfully mobile--so Dick expressed it to himself--and yet +her eyes were frank, steady and unembarrassed. Her voice was curiously +low and clear. + +Dick was conscious of feeling a vague and unsteady wonder at himself. +Why this sudden interest in a girl? He had never felt anything of the +kind before. Had this something to do with the wounds in his head? He +could not entertain that suggestion seriously. However that might be, he +felt that his sudden interest in this young person whom he had not so +much as heard of an hour ago greatly increased his interest in many +things. He was conscious of a sure friendship for her, as if he had +known her for years. He knew that this friendship was a more important +thing to him than his friendships with Hiram Sill and Frank Sacobie--and +yet those friendships had grown day by day, strengthened week by week +and stood the test of suffering and peril. + +She told him that her father was still in France, but safe now at +General Headquarters, that her eldest brother had been killed in action +in 1914, that another was fighting in the East, and that still another +was a midshipman on the North Sea. Also, she told him that she wanted to +go to France as a V. A. D., that she had left school six months ago and +was working five hours every day making bandages and splints, and that +she was seventeen years old. Those confidences melted Dick's tongue. He +told her his own age and that he had added a little to it at the time of +enlisting; he spoke of night and daylight raids and major offensive +operations in which he had taken part, of the military careers of Henry +and Peter and of life at Beaver Dam. She seemed to be as keenly +interested in his confidences as he had been in hers. In the library, +where coffee was served, Dick continued to cling to his new friend. + +The party came to an end at last, leaving Dick in a somewhat scattered +state of mind. Before leaving with her daughters, Mrs. Kingston gave her +address and a cordial invitation to make use of it to each of the three. +Before long Wilson took Jack off to bed. Then Hiram left to keep an +appointment at the Royal Automobile Club with a captain who knew some +one at the War Office. That left Frank and Dick with Jack Davenport's +library to themselves. One place was much the same as another to Dick +just then. He was again wondering if he could possibly be suffering in +some subtle and painless way from the wounds in his head. With enquiring +fingers he felt the spotless bandage that still adorned the top of his +head. + +Sacobie got out of his chair suddenly, with an abruptness of movement +that was foreign to him, and walked the length of the room and back. He +halted before Dick and stared down at him keenly for several seconds +without attracting that battered youth's attention. So he fell again to +pacing the room, walking lightly and with straight feet, the true Indian +walk. At last he halted again in front of Dick's chair. + +"I am not going back to the battalion," he said. + +Dick sat up with a jerk and stared at him. + +"I am not going back," repeated Sacobie. "I shall get my commission, +that is sure; but I shall not be an officer in the battalion." + +"Why the mischief not?" exclaimed Dick. "What's the matter with the +battalion, I'd like to know?" + +"Nothing," replied the other. He moved away a few paces, then turned +back again. "A good battalion. I was a good sergeant there. But I met +Capt. Dodds, on leave, one day, and we had lunch together at Scott's; +and he feel pretty good--he felt pretty good--and he talked a lot. He +told me how some officers and other ranks say the colonel didn't do +right when he put in my name for cadet course and a commission. You know +why, Dick. So I don't go back to the infantry with my two stars." + +"Do you mean because you are an Indian? That is rot!" + +"No, it is good sense. You think about it hard as I have thought about +it day and night. They don't say I don't know my job. The captain told +me the colonel was right and everybody knew it when he said I should +make the best scout officer in the brigade; and the men like me, you +know that; but the men don't want an Injun for an officer. They are +white men. I am a Malecite--red. That is right. I don't go back with my +officer stars." + +"Do you mean that you won't take your commission?" asked Dick. + +"No. I take it, sure. But not in the 26th." + +Dick did not argue. He had never considered his friend's case in that +light before, but now he knew that Sacobie was right. The +noncommissioned officers and men would not question Frank's military +qualifications, his ability or his personal merits. His race was the +only thing about him to which they objected--and that appeared +objectionable in him only when they considered him as an officer. As a +"non-com" he was one of themselves, but as an officer they must consider +him impersonally as a superior. There was where the New Brunswick +soldiers would cease to consider their friend and comrade Frank Sacobie +and see only a member of an inferior race. Their point of view would +immediately revert to that of the old days before the war, when they +would have laughed at a Malecite's undertaking to perform any task +except paddling a canoe. + +"Will you transfer to another battalion?" asked Dick, as a result of his +reflections. + +Frank shook his head but made no reply. + +"Then to an English battalion?" Dick persisted. "There are dozens that +would be glad to have you, Frank. A Canadian with your record would not +have to look far for a job in this war. Jack Davenport's old regiment +would snap you up quick as a wink, commission and all, I bet a dollar." + +The other smiled gravely. "That is right," he said. "Capt. Davenport is +my friend and knows what I am; but most English people want me to be +some kind of prince from India. I am myself--a Canadian soldier. I don't +want to play the monkey. Two-Blanket Sacobie was a big chief, with his +salmon spear and sometimes nothing to eat. His squaw chopped the wood +and carried the water. I am not a prince, nor I'm not a monkey. I come +to the war, and the English people call me rajah; but the Englishman +come to our country and hire me for a guide in the woods and call me a +nigger. No, I am myself with what good I have in me. I can do to fight +the Germans, and that is all I want, Dick. I try to be a gentleman, like +Peter and Capt. Davenport, and the King will make me an officer. That is +good. I will join the Royal Flying Corps. Then they will name me for +what I am by what I do." + +Dick gripped Frank's right hand in a hearty clasp of respect and +admiration. + +"You're a brick!" he said. "Jack was right when he said you were a deep +thinker." + +"I got to think deep--deeper than you," said Frank. "I got to think all +for myself, because my fathers didn't think at all." + + + + + CHAPTER X + + DICK OBLIGES HIS FRIEND + + +BOTH Hiram Sill and Frank Sacobie completed the cadet course and passed +the final examinations. After one last fling at Washington and one more +astounding suggestion to the War Office, Mr. Sill went back to France +and his battalion and took command of a platoon. Mr. Sacobie +transferred, with his new rank, to the Royal Flying Corps and +immediately began another course of instruction. His brother officers +decided that he was of a family of Italian origin. He did not bother his +head about what they thought and applied himself with fervor to +mastering the science of flying. + +Dick recovered his strength steadily. He saw Davenport frequently and +the Kingstons still more frequently. His friendship with the +Kingstons--particularly with Kathleen--deepened without a check. No two +days ever went by consecutively without his seeing one or another of +that family--usually one. + +On a certain Tuesday morning near the end of November he left the +hospital at ten o'clock in high spirits. He had that morning discarded +his last crutch and now moved along with the help of two big sticks. The +dressing on his head was reduced to one thin strip of linen bound +smoothly round just above the line of his eyebrows. It showed beneath +his cap and gave him somewhat the air of a cheerful brigand. Though his +left foot came into contact with the pavement very gingerly, he twirled +one of the heavy sticks airily every now and again. + +Dick found Jack Davenport in the library. A woman and two little girls +were leaving the library as he entered. The woman was poorly dressed, +and her eyelids were red from recent tears--but now a look of relief, +almost of joy, shone in her eyes. She turned on the threshold. + +"Bill will have more heart now, sir, for the fighting of his troubles +and miseries over there," she said. "If I were to stand and talk an +hour, sir, I couldn't tell you what's in my heart--but I say again, God +bless you for your great kindness!" + +She turned again then and passed Dick, and the butler opened the big +door and bowed her out of the house with an air of cheery good will. + +Capt. Starkley-Davenport sat with his crutch and stick leaning against +the table. On the cloth within easy reach his check book lay open before +him. He was dressed with his usual completeness of detail and studied +simplicity. + +"Have you been boarded yet?" asked Jack. + +"To-morrow," replied Dick. "All the M. O.'s are friends of mine, so I +expect to wangle back to my battalion in two weeks." + +Jack smiled and shook his head. "Your best friend in the world--or the +maddest doctor in the army--wouldn't send you back to France on one leg, +old son. Six weeks is nearer the mark." + +"I can make it in two. You watch me." + +"And is it still your old battalion, Dick? I have refrained from +worrying you about it this time, because you deserved a rest--but I'm +keener than ever to see you in my old outfit; and your third pip is +there for you to put up on the very day of your transfer." + +"I've been thinking about it, Jack--and of course I'd like to do it +because you want me to. But the colonel wouldn't understand. No one who +does not know you would understand. People would think I'd done it for +the step, or that I hadn't hit it off, as an officer, with the old +crowd. I want to stay, and yet I want to go. I want to fight on, as far +as my luck will take me, with the 26th, and yet I'd be proud as a +brigadier to sport three pips with your lot. As for doing something that +you want me to do--why, to be quite frank with you, there isn't another +man in the world I'd sooner please than you. Give me a few months more +in which to decide. Give me until my next leave from France." + +Dick had become embarrassed toward the end of his speech, and now he +looked at Davenport with a red face. The other returned the glance with +a flush on his thin cheeks. + +"Bless you, Dick," he said and looked away. "Your next leave from +France," he continued. "Six or seven months from now, with luck. They +don't give me much more than that." Dick stared at his friend. + +"I had to send for an M. O. early this morning," Jack went on in a level +voice. "Wilson did it; he heard me fussing about. By seven o'clock there +were three of the wisest looking me over--all three familiar with my +case ever since I got out of hospital. They can't do anything, for +everything that could be removed--German metal--was dug out long ago. A +few odds and ends remain, here and there--and one or another of those is +bound to get me within ten or twelve months. So it will read in the +_Times_ as 'Died of wounds,' after all." + +Dick's face turned white. "Are you joking?" he asked. + +"Not I, old son," said the captain, smiling. "I have a sense of +humor--but it doesn't run quite to that." + +"And here you are all dolled up in white spats! Jack, you have a giant's +heart! And worrying about me and your regiment! Jack, I'll do it! I'll +transfer. I'll put in my application to-day." + +"No. I like your suggestion better. Wait till your next leave from +France. I have taken a fancy to that idea. You'll come home in six or +seven months, and you'll ask me to let you put off your decision until +you return again. Of course I shall have to say yes--and, since I am +determined to see the Essex badges on you, I'll wait another six or +seven months. I am stubborn. Between your indecision and my +stubbornness, the chances are that I'll fool the doctors. That would be +a joke, if you like!" + +Dick hobbled round the table and grasped Jack's hand. + +"Done!" he exclaimed. "I am with you, Jack. We'll play that game for all +it is worth. But you didn't seriously believe what the doctors said, did +you?" + +"Yes, until five minutes ago." + +"Two years ago they said you would be right as wheat in six months; and +now they say you will be dead in a year. If they think they're +prophets--they are clean off their job. Would they bet money on it? I +don't think! One year! Fifty years would have sounded almost as knowing +and a good sight more likely." + +Dick stayed to luncheon, and he remained at the table after Wilson had +taken Jack away to lie down. Wilson came back within fifteen minutes and +found the Canadian subaltern where he had left him. + +"Sir, I am anxious about Capt. Jack," he said. + +"Why do you say that?" asked Dick. + +"Sir Peter Bayle and two other medical gentlemen of the highest standing +warned him this very morning, sir, that he was only one year more for +this world; and now he is singing, sir,--a thing he has not done in +months,--and a song which runs, sir, with your permission, 'All the boys +and girls I chance to meet say, Who's that coming down the street? Why, +it's Milly; she's a daisy'--and so on, sir. I fear his wounds have +affected his mind, sir." + +"Wilson, I know that song and approve of it," said Dick. "If Sir Peter +Bayle told you, in November, 1916, that you were to die in November, +1917, of wounds received in 1914, should you worry? Nix to that! You +would seriously suspect that Sir Peter had his diagnosis of your case +mixed up in his high-priced noddle with Buchan's History of the War; and +if you are the man I think you are, you, too, would sing." + +"I thank you, Mr. Richard. You fill my heart with courage, sir," said +Wilson. + +Dick reached the Kingston house at four o'clock and was shown as usual +into the drawing-room. The ladies were not there, but an officer whom +Dick had never seen before stood on the hearthrug with his back to the +fire. He wore the crown and star of a lieutenant colonel on his +shoulders, a wound stripe on his left sleeve, the red tabs of the +general staff on his collar, on his right breast the blue ribbon of the +Royal Humane Society's medal and on his left breast the ribbons of the +D. S. O., of the Queen's and the King's South African medals, of several +Indian medals and of the Legion of Honor. His figure was slight and of +little more than the medium height. A monocle without a cord shone in +his right eye, and his air was amiable and alert. Dick halted on his two +sticks and said, "I beg your pardon, sir." + +The other flashed a smile, advanced quickly and in two motions put Dick +into a deep chair and took possession of the sticks. Then he shook the +visitor's hand heartily. + +"Glad to see you," he said. "There is no mistaking you. You are +Kathleen's Canadian subaltern. I am Kathleen's father." + +Dick knew that there were plenty of suitable things to say in reply, but +for the life of him he could not think of one of them. So he said +nothing, but returned the colonel's smile. + +"Don't be bashful, Dick," continued the other. "I was a boy myself not +so long ago as you think--but I hadn't seen a shot fired in anger when I +was your age. It's amazing. I wonder what weight of metal has gone over +your head, not to mention what has hit you and fallen short. Tons and +tons, I suppose. It's an astounding war, to my mind. Don't you find it +so?" + +"Yes, sir," replied Dick. + +"And you are right," continued the other. "I wish I were your age, so as +to see it more clearly. Stupendous!" + +At that moment Mrs. Kingston and the two girls entered. It had been +Dick's and Kathleen's intention to go out to tea; but the colonel upset +that plan by saying that he was very anxious to hear Dick talk. So they +remained at home for tea--and the colonel did all the talking. Dick +agreed with everything he said about the war, however, and then he said +that Dick was right--so it really made no difference after all which of +them actually said the things. + +During the ten days of the colonel's leave he and Dick became firm +friends. They knocked about town together every morning, often lunched +with Jack Davenport and every afternoon and evening took Mrs. Kingston +and the girls out. Dick dined at home with the family on the colonel's +last night of leave. After dinner, when the others left the table, the +colonel detained Dick with a wink. + +"I won't keep you from Kathleen ten minutes, my boy," he said. "I want +to tell you, in case I don't see you again for a long time,--meetings +between soldiers are uncertain things, Dick,--that this little affair +between you and my daughter has done me good to see. You are both +babies, so don't take it too seriously. Take it happily. Whatever may +happen in the future, you two children will have something very +beautiful and romantic and innocent to look back at in this war. Though +you should live to be ninety and marry a girl from Assiniboia, yet you +will always remember this old town with pleasure. If, on the other hand, +you should continue in your present vein--that is, continue to feel like +this after you grow up--that it is absolutely necessary to your +happiness to have tea with my daughter every day--well, good luck to +you! I can't say more than that, my boy. But in the meantime, be happy." + +Then he shook Dick vigorously by the hand, patted his shoulder and +pushed him out of the room. + +Dick handled the medical officers so ably that he and his transportation +were ready for France on New Year's Day. The Kingstons saw him off. He +found a seat in a first-class compartment and deposited his haversack in +it. Then the four stood on the platform and tried in vain to think of +something to say. Even Mrs. Kingston was silent. Officers of all ranks +of every branch of the service, with their friends and relatives, +crowded the long platform. Late arrivals bundled in and out of the +carriages, looking for unclaimed seats. Guards looked at their big +silver watches and requested the gentlemen to take their seats. Then +Mrs. Kingston kissed Dick; then Mary kissed him; and then, lifted to a +state of recklessness, he kissed Kathleen on her trembling lips. He saw +tears quivering in her eyes. + +"When I come back--next leave--will it be the same?" he asked. + +She bowed her head, and the tears spilled over and glistened on her +cheeks. Standing in the doorway of the compartment, Dick saluted, then +turned, trod on the toes of a sapper major, moved heavily from there to +the spurred boots of an artillery colonel and sat down violently and +blindly on his lumpy haversack. The five other occupants of the +compartment glanced from Dick to the group on the platform. + + [Illustration: "STANDING IN THE DOORWAY OF THE COMPARTMENT, + DICK SALUTED."] + +"We all know it's a rotten war, old son," said the gunner colonel and, +stooping, rubbed the toes of his outraged boots with his gloves. + +Dick found many old faces replaced by new in the battalion. Enemy +snipers, shell fire, sickness and promotion had been at work. Dick acted +as assistant adjutant for a couple of weeks and was then posted to a +company as second in command and promised his step in rank at the +earliest opportunity. In the same company was Lieut. Hiram Sill's +platoon. Hiram, busy as ever, had distinguished himself several times +since his return and was in a fair way to be recommended for a Military +Cross. + +The commander of the company was a middle-aged, amiable person who had +been worked so hard during the past year that he had nothing left to +carry on with except courage. At sight of Dick he rejoiced, for Dick had +a big reputation. He took off his boots and belt, retired to his +blankets and told his batman to wake him when the war was over. The +relief was too much for him; it had come too late. The more he rested +the worse he felt, and at last the medical officer sent him out on a +stretcher. Fever and a general breakdown held him at the base for +several weeks, and then he was shipped to Blighty. So Dick got a company +and his third star, and no one begrudged him the one or the other. + +The Canadian Corps worked all winter in preparation for its great spring +task. The Germans fortified and intrenched and mightily garrisoned along +all the great ridge of Vimy, harassed the preparing legions with shells +and bombs and looked contemptuously out and down upon us from their +strong vantage points. Others had failed to wrest Vimy from them. But +night and day the Canadians went on with their preparations. + +Word that the United States of America had declared war on Germany +reached the toilers before Vimy on April 7; and within the week there +came a night of gunfire that rocked the earth and tore the air. With +morning the gunfire ceased, only to break forth again in lesser volume +as the jumping barrages were laid along the ridge; and then, in a storm +of wind and snow, the battalions went over on a five-division front, +company after company, wave after wave, riflemen, bombers and Lewis +gunners. The Canadians were striking after their winter of drudgery. + +One of our men, a Yankee by birth, went over that morning with a +miniature Stars and Stripes tied to his bayonet. We cleared out the Huns +and took the ridge; and for days the water that filled the shell holes +and mine craters over that ground was red with Canadian blood, and the +plank roads were slippery with it from the passing of our wounded. + +Dick went through that fight in front of his company and came out of it +speechless with exhaustion, but unhit. Hiram Sill survived it with his +arm in a sling. Maj. Henry Starkley was wounded again, again not +seriously. Maj. Patrick Hammond was killed, and Corp. Jim Hammond was +carried back the next day with a torn scalp and a crushed knee. + +On the tenth day after that battle Lieut. Hiram Sill and his company +commander were the recipients of extraordinary news. Mr. Sill was +requested to visit the colonel without loss of time. He turned up within +the minute and saluted with his left hand. + +"You are wanted back in the U. S. A., Hiram, for instructional +purposes," said the colonel, looking over a mess of papers at his elbow. +"You don't have to go if you don't want to. Here it is--and to be made +out in triplicate, of course." + +Hiram examined the papers. + +"And here is something else that will interest you," continued the +colonel. "News for you and Dick Starkley. You have your M. C." + +Hiram's eyes shone. + +"And Dick seems to have hooked the same for his work on the Somme--and I +had given up all hope of that coming through. I recommended him for a D. +S. O. last week. The way these recommendations for awards are handled +beats me. They put them all into a hat and then chuck the hat out of the +window, I guess, and whatever recommendations are picked up in the +street and returned through the post are approved and acted upon. I know +a chap--come back here!" + +Hiram turned at the door of the hut. + +"Do you intend to accept that job?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"You have a choice between going over to the American army with your +rank or simply being seconded from the Canadians for that duty. What do +you mean to do?" + +"Seconded, sir. I am an American citizen clear through, colonel, but I +have worn this cut of uniform too long to change it in this war." + +Hiram found Dick in his billet, reading a letter. Dick received the news +of the awards and of Hiram's appointment very quietly. + +"Jack Davenport has gone west," he said. + +Hiram sat down and stared at Dick without a word. + +"This letter is from Kathleen," continued Dick. "She says Jack went out +on Monday to visit some of the people he helps. He had taken on six more +widows and seven more babies since the Vimy show. On his way home toward +evening he and Wilson were outside the Blackfriars underground station, +looking for a taxi, when a lorry took a skid fair at an old woman and +little boy who were just making the curb. Wilson swears that Jack jumped +from the curb as if there were nothing wrong with him, landed fair in +front of the lorry, knocked the old woman and kid out from under, but +fell before he could get clear himself." + +"Killed?" + +"Instantly." + +Hiram gazed down at his muddy boots, and Dick continued to regard the +letter in his hand. + +"Can you beat it?" said Hiram at last. + +Dick got up and paced about the little room, busy with his thoughts. +Finally he spoke. + +"Sacobie is flying, and you are booked for the States, and I am going to +transfer to Jack's old lot," he said slowly. + +Hiram looked up at him, but did not speak. + +"Jack wanted me to," continued Dick. "Well, why not? It's the same old +army and the same old war. A fellow should make an effort to oblige a +man like Jack--dead or alive." He was silent for several seconds, then +went on: "Henry has been offered a staff job in London. Peter is safe. +Sacobie has brought down four Boche machines already. What have you +heard about Jim Hammond?" + +"It's Blighty for him--and then Canada. He'll never in the world bend +that leg again." + +For a while Dick continued to pace back and forth across the muddy floor +in silence. + +"We are scattering, Old Psychology," he said. "This war is a great +scatterer--but there are some things it can't touch. You'll be homesick +at your new job, Hiram,--and I'll be homesick with the Essex bunch, I +suppose,--but there are some things that make it all seem worth the +rotten misery of it." He glanced down at Kathleen's letter, then put it +into his pocket. "Jack Davenport, for one," he ended. + +"A soldier and a gentlemen," said Hiram. + + THE END + + + + + Transcriber Notes: + +Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. + +Passages in bold were indicated by =equal signs=. + +Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. + +Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of +the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. + +The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up +paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. Thus +the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in +the List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the +same in the List of Illustrations and in the book. + +Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected +unless otherwise noted. + +On page 142, "comissions" was replaced with "commissions". + +On page 243, "harrassed" was replaced with "harassed". + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fighting Starkleys, by +Theodore Goodridge Roberts + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44185 *** |