275

XXIV. GERMAN CRUELTY 289

XXV. A FLYING THRONE 304

XXVI. A TREASURE BOX 319

XXVII. THE FINAL HOCUS-POCUS 330

WINGS OF THE WIND

CHAPTER I

"TO ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE!"

At last out of khaki, and dressed in conventional evening clothes, I
felt as if I were indeed writing the first words of another story on the
unmarred page of the incoming year. As I entered the library my mother,
forgetting that it was I who owed her deference, came forward with
outstretched arms and a sound in her voice like that of doves at nesting
time. Dad's welcome was heartier, even though his eyes were dimmed with
happy tears. And old Bilkins, our solemn, irreproachable butler, grinned
benignly as he stood waiting to announce dinner. What a wealth of
affection I had to be grateful for!

I did not lack gratitude, but with the old year touching the heels of
the new, and Time commanding me to get in step, my return to civil life
held few inducements. Instead of a superabundance of cheer, I had
brought from France jumpy nerves and a body lean with over
training--natural results of physical exhaustion coupled with the mental
reaction that must inevitably follow a year and a half of highly
imaginative living.

But there was another aspect less tangible, perhaps more permanent--and
all members of combat divisions will understand exactly what I mean.
When America picked up the gauntlet, an active conscience jerked me from
a tuneful life and drove me out to war--for whether men are driven by
conscience, or a government draft board, makes no difference in the
effect upon those who come through. Time after time, for eighteen
months, I made my regular trips into hell--into a hell more revolting
than mid-Victorian evangelists ever pictured to spellbound, quaking
sinners. Never in this world had there been a parallel to the naked
dangers and nauseous discomforts of that western front; never so
prolonged an agony of head-splitting noises, lacerations of human flesh,
smells that turned the body sick, blasphemies that made the soul grow
hard, frenzied efforts to kill, and above all a spirit, fanatical, that
urged each man to bear more, kill more, because he was a Crusader for
the right.

Into this red crucible I had plunged, and now emerged--remolded. In one
brief year and a half I had lived my life, dreamed the undreamable,
accomplished the unacco