ing up between the
thunderclaps which shook earth and sods down on us and wrinkled the pool
of water at our feet.

The Legion had taken the trench; but the place was a rabbit warren where
hundreds of holes and burrows and ditches and communicating runways made a
bewildering maze.

And everywhere in the dull, flame-shot obscurity, the Legionaries ran
about like ghouls in their hoods and round, hollow eye-holes; masked
faces, indistinct in the smoke, loomed grotesque and horrible as Ku-Klux
where the bayonets were at work digging out the enemy from blind burrows,
turning them up from their bloody forms.

Rifles blazed down into bomb-proofs, cracked steadily over the heads of
comrades who piled up sandbags to block communication trenches;
grenade-bombs rained down through the smoke into trenches, blowing bloody
gaps in huddling masses of struggling Teutons until they flattened back
against the parados and lifted arms and gun-butts stammering out,
"Comrades! Comrades!"--in the ghastly irony of surrender.

A man whose entire helmet, gas-mask, and face had been blown off, and who
was still alive and trying to speak, stiffened, relaxed, and died in my
arms. As I rolled him aside and turned to the next man whom the bearers
were lowering into the crater, his respirator and goggles fell apart, and
I found myself looking into the ashy face of Duck Werner.

As we laid him out and stripped away iron helmet and tunic, he said in a
natural and distinct voice.

"Through the belly, Doc. Gimme a drink."

There was no more water or stimulant at the moment and the puddle in the
crater was bloody. He said, patiently, "All right; I can wait.... It's in
the belly.... It ain't nothin', is it?"

I said something reassuring, something about the percentage of recovery I
believe, for I was exceedingly busy with Duck's anatomy.

"Pull me through, Doc?" he inquired calmly.

"Sure...."

"Aw, listen, Doc. Don't hand me no cones of hokey-pokey. Gimme a deck of
the stuff. Dope out the coke. Do I get mine this trip?"

I looked at him, hesitating.

"Listen, Doc, am I hurted bad? Gimme a hones' deal. Do I croak?"

"Don't talk, Duck----"

"Dope it straight. _Do_ I?"

"Yes."

"I thought you'd say that," he returned serenely. "Now I'm goin' to fool
you, same as I fooled them guys at Bellevue the night that Mike the Kike
shot me up in the subway."

A pallid sneer stretched his thin and burning lips; in his ratty eyes
triumph gleamed.