here, too, and going in my automobile? And we've both
got lower berths!"

"Sh-h! That poor chap's dying!"

Worst of all to Marta was the case of a shrapnel fracture of the
cranium, with the resulting delirium, in which the sufferer's
incoherence included memories of childhood scenes, moments on the
firing-line, calls for his mother, and prayers to be put out of misery.
A prod of the hypodermic from the major surgeon, and "On the
operating-table in fifteen minutes" was the answer to Marta's question
if the poor fellow would live.

Until dark, in groups, at intervals, and again singly, the wounded were
coming in from a brigade front in the region where the rifles were
crackling and the shrapnel clouds were hanging prettily over the hills;
and stretchers were being slipped into place in the ambulances, while
Marta kept at her post.

"We shan't have much more to do at this station," said the major surgeon
when a plodding section of infantry in retreat arrived.

XXIII

STRANSKY FIGHTS ALONE

Every unit engrossed in his own work! Every man taught how a weak link
may break a chain and realizing himself as a link and only a link! The
captain of engineers forgot Marta's existence as an error of his
subordinates caught his eye, and he went to caution the axemen to cut
closer to the ground, as stumps gave cover for riflemen. For the time
being he had no more interest in the knoll than in the wreckage of
dirigibles which were down and out of the fight.

After all, the knoll was only a single point on the vast staff map--only
one of many points of a struggle whose progress was bulletined through
the siftings of regimental, brigade, division, and corps headquarters in
net results to the staff. Partow and Lanstron overlooked all. Their
knowledge made the vast map live under their eyes. But our concern is
with the story of two regiments, and particularly of two companies, and
that is story enough. If you would grasp the whole, multiply the
conflict on the knoll by ten thousand.

There had been the engrossment of transcendent emotion in repelling the
charge. What followed was like some grim and passionless trance with
triggers ticking off the slow-passing minutes. Dellarme aimed to keep
down the fusillade from Fracasse's trench and yet not to neglect the
fair targets of the reserves advancing by rushes to the support of the
128th. Reinforced, the gray streak at the bottom of the slope poured in
a heavier fire. Above