. Finally the operator half
turned on his camp chair and made a gesture for him to resume the
receiver.

"If you choose to volunteer for such service," came the message, "it is
approved. But understand--you are not ordered on such duty."

"I understand. I volunteer."

"Very well. Munitions go to you immediately by automobile. It is expected
that the wind will blow from the west by morning. By morning, also, all
reserves will arrive in the west salient. What is to be your signal?"

"The carillon from the Nivelle belfry."

"What tune?"

"'La Brabanconne.' If not that, then the tocsin on the great bell,
Clovis."

------------------

In the tiny cafe the crippled innkeeper sat, his aged, wistful eyes
watching three leather-clad airmen who had been whispering together around
a table in the corner all the afternoon.

They nodded in silence to the new arrival, and he joined them.

Daylight faded in the room; the drum in the Sainte Lesse belfry, set to
play before the hour sounded, began to turn aloft; the silvery notes of
the carillon seemed to shower down from the sky, filling the twilight
world with angelic melody. Then, in resonant beauty, the great bell,
Bayard, measured the hour.

The airman who had just arrived went to a sink, washed the caked blood
from his face and tied it up with a first-aid bandage. Then he began to
pace the cafe, his head bent in thought, his nervous hands clasped behind
him.

The room was dusky when he came back to the table where his three comrades
still sat consulting in whispers. The old innkeeper had fallen asleep on
his chair by the window. There was no light in the room except what came
from stars.

"Well," said one of the airmen in a carefully modulated voice, "what are
you going to do, Jim?"

"Stay."

"What's the idea?"

The bandaged airman rested both hands on the stained table-top:

"We quit Nivelle tonight, but our reserves are already coming up and we
are to retake Nivelle tomorrow. You flew over the town this morning,
didn't you?"

All three said yes.

"You took photographs?"

"Certainly."

"Then you know that our trenches pass under the bell-tower?"

"Yes."

"Very well. The wind is north. When the Boches enter our trenches they'll
try to gas our salient while the wind holds. But west winds are predicted
after sunrise tomorrow. I'm going to get into the Nivelle belfry tonight
with a sack of bombs. I'm going to try to explode