ight and storm, of a
weary squad of men, lying flat, trying to dig in under cover of rain and
darkness, of the hell of cannonade over and around them. He told of
hours that blasted men's souls, of death that was a blessing, of escape
that was torture beyond the endurance of humans. Crowning that night of
horrors piled on horrors, when he had seen a dozen men buried alive in
mud lifted by a monster shell, when he had seen a refuge deep
underground opened and devastated by a like projectile, came a
cloud-burst that flooded the trenches and the fields, drowning soldiers
whose injuries and mud-laden garments impeded their movements, and
rendering escape for the others an infernal labor and a hideous
wretchedness, unutterable and insupportable.

Round the camp-fires the Blue Devils stood or lay, trying to rest. But
the habit of the trenches was upon them. Dorn gazed at each and every
soldier, so like in strange resemblance, so different in physical
characteristics; and the sad, profound, and terrifying knowledge came to
him of what they must have in their minds. He realized that all he
needed was to suffer and fight and live through some little part of the
war they had endured and then some truth would burst upon him. It was
there in the restless steps, in the prone forms, in the sunken, glaring
eyes. What soldiers, what men, what giants! Three and a half years of
unnamable and indescribable fury of action and strife of thought! Not
dead, nor stolid like oxen, were these soldiers of France. They had a
simplicity that seemed appalling. We have given all; we have stood in
the way, borne the brunt, saved you--this was flung at Dorn, not out of
their thought, but from their presence. The fact that they were there
was enough. He needed only to find these bravest of brave warriors real,
alive, throbbing men.

Dorn lingered there, loath to leave. The great lesson of his life held
vague connection in some way with this squad of French privates. But he
could not pierce the veil. This meeting came as a climax to four months
of momentous meetings with the best and the riffraff of many nations.
Dorn had studied, talked, listened, and learned. He who had as yet given
nothing, fought no enemy, saved no comrade or refugee or child in all
this whirlpool of battling millions, felt a profound sense of his
littleness, his ignorance. He who had imagined himself unfortunate had
been blind, sick, self-centered. Here were soldiers to whom comfort