nothing that they had yet gone through was any
criterion for what they now had to endure. All understood the nature of
a hand-grenade, which bursts like a Nihilist's bomb. It was as easy,
they knew, to toss hand-grenades over the sand-bags into human flesh as
apples into a basket. They felt themselves bound and gagged, waiting for
an assassin to macerate them at his own sweet will.

The second hour was worse than the first, the third worse than the
second. In lulls they heard the voices of Dellarme and his men, which
seemed more ominous than the crash of rifles or the scream and crack of
shells. Finally there was a lull which they knew meant the supreme
attempt to storm the position from the town side. They heard the
commotion that followed Dellarme's death; the sharp, rallying commands
of Feller and Stransky; and then, as Peterkin saw a black object fly
free of a hand over the parapet he made a catlike spring, followed by
another and another, and plunged face downward at the angle where the
face of the redoubt bent toward the town.

He thought that he was dead, and found, as he had in the shell crater,
that he was not. After the two explosions he heard groans that chilled
his blood, and looked around to see living faces like chalk, with
glassy, beady, protruding eyes, and a dozen men killed and eviscerated
and mangled in bleeding confusion.

But Hugo and Pilzer and those of Peterkin's immediate group were alive.
They were in their places, while he was alone and out of his place. He
had bolted, while they held their ground; now he would be revealed in
his true light. The bronze cross would be lost before it was pinned to
his breast. From where he lay, however, he could see the other face of
the redoubt and a wedge of men about to mount the sand-bags. His next
act was born of the inspired cunning of his fear of being exposed,
which was almost as compelling as his fear of death. He waved his hand
excitedly to the others to come on.

"Charge! Charge! This is the way!" shrieked Peterkin.

His voice had the terror of a man floating toward a falls and calling
for a rope, but not so to Fracasse, to whom it was the voice of a great
chance. Why hadn't he thought of this before? Of course, he should move
around under cover of the reverse wall of the redoubt to join in the
attack on the weak point! The valet's son had shown him the way.

"Come, men, come! Follow me and Peterkin!" cried Fracasse.

Did they follow? Westerling