The Forest of Swords Part 31

Wharton looked rather white, but he shouted back:

"I had no other choice."

The French aeroplanes were around them now, their motors drumming steadily and the aviators shouting congratulations to Lannes and Caumartin, whom they knew well. It was a friendly group, full of pride and exultation, and the _Arrow_ and the _Omnibus_ had a triumphant escort. Soon they were directly over the French, and then they began their descent. As usual, when they reached the army they made it amid cheers, and the first man who greeted John was short and young but with a face of pride.

"You have come back to us out of the air, Monsieur Scott," he said, "and I salute you."

It was Pierre Louis Bougainville, made a colonel already for extraordinary, almost unprecedented, valor and ability in so young a man. John recognized his rank by his uniform, and he acknowledged it gladly.

"It's true, I have come back, Colonel Bougainville," he said, "and right glad I am to come. I see that your country has had no cause to complain of you in the last week."

"Nor of hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen," said Bougainville. "Your company, the Strangers, is close at hand, and here is your captain now."

Captain Daniel Colton, thin and ascetic, walked forward. John gave him his best salute and said:

"Captain Colton, I beg to report to you for duty."

A light smile pa.s.sed swiftly over Cotton's face.

"You're a little late, Lieutenant Scott," he said.

"I know it, sir, but I've brought Lieutenant Carstairs and Lieutenant Wharton with me. There have been obstacles which prevented our speedy return. We've done our best."

"I can well believe it. You left on horseback, and you return by air.

But I'm most heartily glad to see all three of you again. I feared that you were dead."

"Thank you, sir," said John. "But we don't mean to die."

"Nevertheless," said Captain Colton, gravely, "death has been all about us for days and nights. Many of the Strangers are gone. You will find the living lying in the little valley just beyond us, and you can resume your duties."

Lannes, after a word or two, left them, and Caumartin took the _Omnibus_ to another part of the field. Lannes' importance was continually growing in John's eyes, nor was it the effect of imagination. He saw that under the new conditions of warfare the ability of the young Frenchman to carry messages between generals separated widely could not be overrated. He might depart that very night on another flight.

"May I ask, sir," he said to Captain Colton, "to what command or division the Strangers are now attached?"

"To that of General Vaugirard, a very able man."

"I'm glad to hear it, sir. I know him. I was with him before I was taken by the Germans."

"It seems that you're about to have a general reunion," said Carstairs to young Scott, as they walked away.

"I am, and I'm mighty happy over it. I'll admit that I was rather glad to see you, you blooming Britisher."

About one-third of the Strangers were gone forever, and the rest, except the higher officers, were prostrate in the glade. White, worn and motionless they lay in the same stupor that John had seen overtake the German troops. Some were flat upon their backs, with arms outstretched, looking like crosses, others lay on their faces, and others were curled up on their sides. Few were over twenty-five. Nearly all had mothers in America or Great Britain.

While they slept the guns yet grumbled at many points. The sound on the horizon had gone on so long now that it seemed normal to John. He knew that it would continue so throughout the night, and maybe for many more days and nights. Unless it came near and made him a direct personal menace he would pay no attention to it.

It was growing late. Night was spreading once more over the vast battle field, stretching over thirty leagues maybe. The common soldier knew nothing, majors and colonels knew little more, but the silent man whose invisible hand had swept the gigantic German army back from Paris knew much. While the fire of the artillery continued under the searchlights the exhausted infantry sank down. Then the telephones began to talk over a vast stretch of s.p.a.ce, dazzling white lights made signals, the sputtering wireless sent messages in the air, and the flying machines shot through the heavens. Commanders talked to one another in many ways now, and they would talk all through the night.

John and his comrades ate supper, while most of the Strangers slept around them. Those who were awake recognized them, shook hands and said a few words. They were a taciturn lot. After supper Carstairs and Wharton dropped upon the gra.s.s and were soon sound asleep. Scott was inclined to be wakeful and he walked along the edge of the glade, looking anxiously at the sleeping forms.

He saw the loom of a fire just beyond the ridge and going to the crest to look at it he beheld outlined before it a gigantic figure that he recognized at once. It was General Vaugirard, and John would have been glad to speak to him, but he hesitated to approach a general. While he stood doubting a hand fell upon his shoulder and a glad voice said in his ear:

"And our young American has come back! Ah, my friend, let me shake your hand!"

It was Captain de Rougemont, trim, erect and without a wound. John gladly let him shake. Then in reply to de Rougemont's eager questions he told briefly of all that had happened since they parted.

"The general has asked twice if we had any news of you," said de Rougemont. "He does not forget. A great mind in a vast body."

"Could I speak to him?"

"Of a certainty, my friend; come."

They advanced toward the fire. General Vaugirard was walking up and down, his hands clasped behind his back, and whistling softly. His huge figure looked yet more huge outlined against the flames. He heard the tread of the two young men and looking up recognized John instantly.

"Risen from the dead!" he exclaimed with warmth, clasping the young man's hand in his own gigantic palm. "I had despaired of ever seeing you again! There are so many more gallant lads whom I will certainly never see! Ah, well, such is life! The roll of our brave young dead is long, very long!"

He reclasped his hands behind his back and walking up and down began to whistle again softly. His emotion over the holocaust had pa.s.sed, and once more he was the general planning for victory. But he stopped presently and said to John:

"The Strangers, to whom you belong, have come under my command. You are one of my children now. I have my eye on all of you. You are brave lads.

Go and seek rest with them while you can. You may not have another chance in a month. We have driven the German, but he will turn, and then we may fight weeks, months, no one knows how long. Ah, well, such is life!"

John saluted respectfully, and withdrew to the little open glade in which the Strangers were lying, sleeping a great sleep. Captain Colton himself, wrapped in a blanket, was now a-slumber under a tree, and Wharton and Carstairs near by, stretched on their sides, were deep in slumber too. Fires were burning on the long line, but they were not numerous, and in the distance they seemed mere pin points. At times bars of intense white light, like flashes of lightning, would sweep along the front, showing that the searchlights of either army still provided illumination for the fighting. The note of the artillery came like a distant and smothered groan, but it did not cease, and it would not cease, since the searchlights would show it a way all through the night.

John sat down, looked at the faint flashes on the far horizon and listened to that moaning which grew in volume as one paid close attention to it. Europe or a great part of it had gone mad. He was filled once more with wrath against kings and all their doings as he looked upon the murderous aftermath of feudalism, the most gigantic of all wars, made in a few hours by a few men sitting around a table. Then he laughed at himself. What was he! A mere feather in a cyclone!

Certainly he had been blown about like one!

His nervous imagination now pa.s.sed quickly and throwing himself upon the ground he slept like those around him. All the Strangers were awakened at early dawn by the signal of a trumpet, and when John opened his eyes he found the air still quivering beneath the throb of the guns. As he had foreseen they had never ceased in the darkness, and he could not remember how many days and nights now they had been raining steel upon human beings.

He was refreshed and strengthened by a night of good sleep, but his mind was as sensitive as ever. In the morning no less bitterly than at night he raged against the folly and ambition of the kings. But the others paid no attention to the cannon. They were light of heart and easy of tongue. They chaffed one another in the cool dawn, and cried to the cooks for breakfast, which was soon brought to them, hot and plentiful.

"I suppose it's forward again," said Carstairs between drinks of coffee.

"I fancy you're right," said Wharton. "Since we've been put in the brigade of that giant of a general, Vaugirard, we're always going forward. He seems to have an uncommon love of fighting for a fat man."

"It's an illusion," said John, "that a fat man is more peaceful than a thin one."

"How are you going to prove it?" asked Wharton.

"Look at Napoleon. When he was thin he was a great fighter, and when he became stout he was just as great a fighter as ever. Fat didn't take away his belligerency."

"I hear that the whole German army has been driven across the Marne,"

said Carstairs, "and that the force we hoped to cut off has either escaped or is about to escape. If that's so they won't retreat much further. The pride of the Germans is too great, and their army is too powerful for them to yield much more ground to us."

"I think you're right, or about as near right as an Englishman can be, Carstairs," said John. "What must be the feelings of the Emperor and the kings and the princes and the grand dukes and the dukes and the martial professors to know that the German army has been turned back from Paris, just when the City of Light seemed ready to fall into their hands?"

"Pretty bitter, I think," said Carstairs, "but it's not pleasant to have the capital of a country fall into the hands of hostile armies. I don't read of such things with delight. It wouldn't give me any such overwhelming joy for us to march into Berlin. To beat the Germans is enough."

Another trumpet blew and the Strangers rose for battle again with an invisible enemy. All the officers, like the men, were on foot, their horses having been killed in the earlier fighting, and they advanced slowly across the stubble of a wheat field. The morning was still cool, although the sun was bright, and the air was full of vigor. The rumbling of the artillery grew with the day, but the Strangers said little.

Battle had ceased to be a novelty. They would fight somewhere and with somebody, but they would wait patiently and without curiosity until the time came.