urst
of shell fire; and then, with the word to break ranks, he found himself
the centre of a group including not only his captain but the colonel of
the regiment. He could not quite make out the expressions on their
faces, but he surmised that they were wondering how any man born under
the flag of the Grays could be such a coward as he was. Probably he
would be shot at sunrise.

"How did it happen?" Fracasse asked.

His tone was very pleasant, but Peterkin felt that this was only the
calmness of a judge hearing the evidence of a culprit. Punishment would
be, accordingly, the more drastic. He was too scared to tell the truth.
He spoke softly, with the mealy tongue of a valet father who never
explained why the wine was low in the decanter by any reference to a
weakness of his own palate.

"I didn't hear the whistle to fall back," he said, "so I stayed."

"Didn't hear the whistle!" exclaimed the captain. He looked at the
colonel and the colonel looked at him. The colonel stroked his mustache
as if it were a nice mustache. "There wasn't any whistle," said Fracasse
with a wry grin.

"Yes, my boy; and then?" asked the colonel, who had never before called
any private in his regiment "my boy."

A bright light broke on Peterkin. Inherited instinct did not permit him
to show much emotion on his face, and he had, too, an inherited gift of
invention. He rubbed his rifle stock with his palm and bowed much in
the fashion of the parent washing his hands in gratitude for a
compliment.

"And I didn't want to run," he continued. "I wanted to take that hill.
That was what we were told to do, wasn't it, sir?"

"Yes, yes!" said the colonel. "Go on!"

The light grew brighter, showing Peterkin's imagination the way to
higher flights.

"I jumped quick into the crater, knowing that if I jumped quick I would
not be hit," he proceeded, his thin voice accentuating his deferential
modesty. "My! but the bullets were thick, going both ways! But I
remembered the lectures to recruits said that it took a thousand to kill
a man. I found that I had cover from the bullets from our side and some
cover from their side. I could not lie there doing nothing, I decided,
after I had munched biscuits for a while--"

"Coolly munching biscuits!" exclaimed the colonel.

"Yes, sir; so I began firing every time I had a chance and I picked off
a number, I think, sir."

"My boy," said the colonel, putting his hand on Peterkin's shoulder, "I
am going to