is own coat, which was warm on the inside,
and began feeling about in the mud for the brandy. He wondered
why the poor man wasn't screaming with pain. The firing on the
hill had ceased, except for the occasional click of a Maxim, off
in the rocks somewhere. His watch said 12:10; could anything have
miscarried up there?

Suddenly, voices above, a clatter of boots on the shale. He began
shouting to them.

"Coming, coming!" He knew the voice. Gerhardt and his rifles ran
down into the ravine with a bunch of prisoners. Claude called to
them to be careful. "Don't strike a light! They've been shelling
down here."

"All right are you, Wheeler? Where are the wounded?"

"There aren't any but the Doctor and me. Get us out of here
quick. I'm all right, but I can't walk."

They put Claude on a stretcher and sent him ahead. Four big
Germans carried him, and they were prodded to a lope by Hicks and
Dell Able. Four of their own men took up the doctor, and Gerhardt
walked beside him. In spite of their care, the motion started the
blood again and tore away the clots that had formed over his
wounds. He began to vomit blood and to strangle. The men put the
stretcher down. Gerhardt lifted the Doctor's head. "It's over,"
he said presently. "Better make the best time you can."

They picked up their load again. "Them that are carrying him now
won't jolt him," said Oscar, the pious Swede.

B Company lost nineteen men in the raid. Two days later the
Company went off on a ten-day leave. Claude's sprained ankle was
twice its natural size, but to avoid being sent to the hospital
he had to march to the railhead. Sergeant Hicks got him a giant
shoe he found stuck on the barbed wire entanglement. Claude and
Gerhardt were going off on their leave together.

XII

A rainy autumn night; Papa Joubert sat reading his paper. He
heard a heavy pounding on his garden gate. Kicking off his
slippers, he put on the wooden sabots he kept for mud, shuffled
across the dripping garden, and opened the door into the dark
street. Two tall figures with rifles and kits confronted him. In
a moment he began embracing them, calling to his wife:

"Nom de diable, Maman, c'est David, David et Claude, tous les
deux!"

Sorry-looking soldiers they appeared when they stood in the
candlelight, plastered with clay, their metal hats shining like
copper bowls, their clothes dripping pools of water upon the
flags of the kitchen floor. Mme. Joubert kissed their wet cheeks