they did not murder him then and there. boylan was glad of that. his sack was already full of blood.... it was all too big. something would happen to spoil the telling. no man ever got out with such a story.... he was a little ashamed to find himself thinking of his newspaper story so soon after the singer was led forth—the man who would sing for the wounded, but who would not sing men to their death. come to think—there was a prostitution about it. certainly poltneck had a point of view. and he was a hair-raiser of quality... everything about him.
boylan thought of writing the poltneck incident, and became hopeless again. the russians would be idiots to let him out alive. he did not expect it. the only chance was that they couldn't see themselves. perhaps kohlvihr thought he was a hero to-day. doubtless he did.... one thing was sure, he, boylan, must sit tight with his enthusiasm for the russian force; must play it harder than ever—must play it for peter mowbray, too.
“you fellows certainly have your troubles—front and back,” he said to dabnitz. “but i say, lieutenant, you couldn't ask troops to go forward better—you couldn't ask more of the japanese in the business of charges—”
“i wasn't out in that service,” dabnitz observed.
“grand little bunch of celibates afield, those japanese—religious about these matters of using up hostile ammunition. fact is, i never saw white troops go out to a finish four times in one day—as yours did to-day—out over their own dead, too—”
he was becoming genial; his heart quaking for peter, as he thought suddenly of the words aimed at kohlvihr's throat, and of peter's association at the last with the man in the steward's blouse. ...dabnitz was unvaryingly courteous.
the advance was on again. boylan went forth to see the repulse. the main lines on either side had loosened to fill the gaps of kohlvihr's division, the much-torn outfits braced by the fresher infantrymen. on they went, a last time, over the strewn land.
boylan saw it all again; heard the drum of the batteries when the troops reached the hollow of the valley; saw them change like figures on a blurred screen; perceived the antics and the general settling—and turned away....
it was like the swoop of a carrion bird an instant afterward—and the deafening strike. the austrians had varied a little. a shrapnel battery had been emplaced among the rapid-fire pieces during the recent interval. a hundred yards down the works to the east landed the first finger of a hand that groped for headquarters. boylan watched for the second shell—one eye, and as little besides as possible, above the rim of the trench now deserted. it was the same tension and tallying of seconds that peter had known on the afternoon that the moon rose before the setting sun. big belt ducked at the second scream. the explosion was nearer and a little back. he returned to field headquarters just as a third shrapnel shivered the land still nearer the bomb-proof pit.
kohlvihr's face was gray as the fringe of his hair. he looked little and aged.
“my compliments to the commander,” he was dictating, “...report that after five advances we find enemy's front impregnable to infantry. headquarters now under shrapnel fire. we are forced to withdraw toward judenbach—”
the dispatch rider was standing by. the dirt sprinkled down on their heads through the wooden buttresses as another shrapnel broke outside.
“but the wounded, general. the field is alive with wounded—” came from doltmir.
“i can't send troops out there again—” the voice was thick and hoarse with repression. “we'll get them at nightfall.... gentlemen, we may now withdraw.”
boylan was one of the last to leave. he saw the aged legs disappear up the earth-rise as the rear door opened. the legs jerked and twitched spasmodically, as if taking an invisible spanking.
boylan was actually afraid of his thoughts, lest they be read in his face—the shocking personal business on kohlvihr's part. “a little shrapnel or two sends him quaking home, and they went out five times for him into the very steam of hell.”
his brain kept repeating this in spite of him, so that he did not try to overtake the staff.
and they—the poor last fragment of them—were piling back toward judenbach, leaving their wounded behind.
