to success, to the coveted knowledge of why he had
fought this war.

The lieutenant, frightened, solicitous, crawled to him, summoning up the
stretcher bearers, for the advance had gone a little ahead, the German
range had shortened to meet it.

"How bad, sir?"

George indicated his legs.

"Never learned how to walk on my hands."

The lieutenant straightened, calling out cursing commands. George
managed to achieve a sitting posture. By gad! This leg hurt! It made him
a little giddy. Only once before, he thought vaguely, had he experienced
such pain. What was the trouble here? The advance had halted, probably
because the word had spread that he was down.

What was it Lambert had said about putting the rank and file on the same
side of the window? The rank and file wanted an officer, and the higher
the officer the farther it would go. That was answer enough for Lambert,
Squibs, Allen----And he would point it out to them all, for the
stretcher bearers had come up, had lifted him to the stretcher, were
ready to start him back to decency, to safety----

Thank God there wasn't any multitude or an insane trainer here to order
him about.

"They've stopped again," the lieutenant sobbed. "Some of them are coming
back."

That sort of thing did spread like a pestilence, but there was nothing
George could do about it. He had done his job. Good job, too. Soft
billet now. Decency. Sylvia. No Green. No multitude----

"You make a touchdown!"

And he became aware at last of the multitude--raving higher officers in
comfortable places; countless victims of invasion, waiting patiently to
go home; myriads in the cities, intoxicated with enthusiasm and wine,
tumbling happily from military play to patriotic bazaar; but most
eloquent of all in that innumerable company were the silent and cold
brown figures lying about him in the underbrush.

His brain, a little delirious, was filled with the roaring from the
stands. The crowd was commanding him to get ahead somehow, to wipe out
those deadly nests, to let the regiment, the army, tired nations, sweep
on to peace and the end of an unbelievable madness.

Once more he glanced through blurred eyes at his clothing and saw
livery, and this time he had put it on of his own free will. He seemed
to hear Squibs:

"World lives by service."

"I'm in the service," he thought. "Got to serve."

It impressed him as quite pitiful that now he would never know just why.

"Where you going?" h