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Page 14
"You'd better go to sleep if you can," said John. "We can't move you
yet, but in time you'll reach a good hospital of ours in the rear."
"I'll obey you," said Kratzek, in the most tractable manner, and closing
his eyes he soon fell asleep despite his wound.
"Now, having caught your Austrian, what are you going to do with him?"
said Carstairs to John.
"Nothing for the present, but later on I'll have him taken down one of
the transverse trenches to a hospital. Maybe you think I'm foolish,
Carstairs, but I've an idea that I've made a friend, though I didn't
have that purpose in view when I went out for him. I never think that
anybody hates me unless he proves it. People as a rule don't take the
time and trouble to hate and plot."
"You're right, Scott. Hating is a terribly tiresome business, and I
notice that you're by nature friendly."
"Which may be because I'm American."
"Oh, well, we English are friendly, too."
"But seldom polite, although I think you're unaware of the latter
fact."
"If a man doesn't know he's impolite, then he isn't. It's the intention
that counts."
"We'll let it go, but I've a strong premonition that this Austrian boy
is going to do me a great favor some day."
"I have premonitions, too, often, but they're invariably wrong. Now, I
see an orderly coming. I hope he hasn't a message from Captain Colton
for us to prowl around in the snow somewhere."
Happily, the message released them from further duty that night and bade
them seek rest. Young Kratzek was lying in John's bed and was sleeping.
He looked so young and so pale that the heart of his captor and rescuer
was moved to pity. Light-headed the Austrians might be, but no one could
deny them valor.
Just beyond the niche was another and smaller one, seldom used, owing to
its extreme narrowness, but John decided that he could sleep in it. At
any rate, if he fell off he would land in six or eight inches of soft
snow.
The flakes were still coming down heavily. It was the biggest snow that
he had yet seen in Europe and he believed that it would fall all night.
They had plenty of blankets and spreading two on the shelf which was no
broader than himself he lay down and put two more over him.
He was in a pleasant mental glow, because he had saved young Kratzek,
forgetting the rest who lay out there under the snow. All his instincts
were for mercy and gentleness, but like others, he was being hardened by
war, or at least he was made forgetful. Resting in the earthen side of a
trench, the horrors of the battle passed out of his mind. The white
gloom was so heavy there that he could not see the other wall four feet
away, and the falling flakes almost grazed his face as they passed, but
he had a marvelous sense of comfort and ease, even of luxury. The
caveman had fared no better, often worse, because he had no blankets,
and John drew a deep sigh of content.
A gun thundered somewhere far back in the German lines, and a gun also
far back in the French lines thundered in reply. Then came a random and
scattering fire of rifles through the falling snow from both sides, but
John was not disturbed in the least by these reports. He felt as safe in
his narrow trench as if he had been a hundred miles from the field of
battle, and compared, with the driving storm outside, his six feet by
one of an earthen bed was all he wished. The pleasant warmth from the
blankets flowed through his veins, and his limbs and senses relaxed.
There was firing again, faint and from a distant point, but it was
soothing now like the tune played on the little mouth-organ earlier in
the evening, and he fell into a deep and peaceful slumber.
When he awoke in the morning the sun was shining in the trench, the
bottom of which was covered with eight inches of snow, now slushy on top
from the red beams. John felt himself restored and strong, and he
stepped down into the snow and slush, having first tucked his blue-gray
trousers into his high boots. He was lucky in the possession of a fine
pair of boots that would turn the last drop of water, and in such times
as these they were worth more than gold.
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