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Page 24
The colonel shrugged massive shoulders. "My English is defective but
distinct," he explained. "One is forced to speak slowly when one speaks
badly. Also the Colonel Chichely"--the Britisher--"it is he at whom I
talk carefully. The English ear, it is not imaginative. One must make
things clear. You know the Hurons, then?"
I specified how.
"Ah!" he breathed out. "The men in my command had been, some of them,
what you call guides. They got across to France in charge of troop
horses on the ships; then they stayed and enlisted. Fine soldier stuff.
Hardy, and of resource and of finesse. Quick and fearless as wildcats.
They fit into one niche of the war better than any other material. You
heard the story of my rescue?"
I had not. At that point food had interfered, and I asked if it was too
much that the colonel should repeat.
"By no means," agreed the polite colonel, ready, moreover, I guessed,
for any amount of talk in his native tongue. He launched an epic
episode. "I was hit leading, in a charge, two battalions. I need not
have done that," another shrug--"but what will you? It was snowing; it
was going to be bad work; one could perhaps put courage into the men by
being at their head. It is often the duty of an officer to do more than,
his duty--_n'est-ce-pas?_ So that I was hit in the right knee and the
left shoulder _par exemple_, and fell about six yards from the German
trenches. A place unhealthy, and one sees I could not run away, being
shot on the bias. I shammed dead. An alive French officer would have
been too interesting in that scenery. I assure m'sieur that the
_entr'actes_ are far too long in No Man's Land. I became more and more
displeased with the management of that play as I lay, very badly amused
with my wounds, and afraid to blink an eye, being a corpse. The Huns
demand a high state of immobility in corpses. But I fell happily
sidewise, and out of the extreme corner of the left eye I caught a
glimpse of our sand-bags. One blessed that twist, though it became
enough _ennuyant_, and one would have given a year of good life to turn
over. Merely to turn over. Am I fatiguing m'sieur?" the colonel broke
in.
I prodded him back eagerly into his tale.
"M'sieur is amiable. The long and short of it is that when it became
dark my good lads began to try to rescue my body. Four or five times
that one-twentieth of eye saw a wriggling form work through sand-bags
and start slowly, flat to the earth, toward me. But the ground was
snow-covered and the Germans saw too the dark uniform. Each time a
fusillade of shots broke out, and the moving figure dropped hastily
behind the sand-bags. And each time--" the colonel stopped to light a
cigarette, his face ruddy in the glare of the match. "Each time I
was--disappointed. I became disgusted with the management of that
theatre, till at last the affair seemed beyond hope, and I had about
determined to turn over and draw up my bad leg with my good hand for a
bit of easement and be shot comfortably, when I was aware that the
surface of the ground near by was heaving--the white, snowy ground
heaving. I was close enough to madness between cold and pain, and I
regarded the phenomenon as a dream. But with that hands came out of the
heaving ground, eyes gleamed. A rope was lashed about my middle and I
was drawn toward our trenches." The cigarette puffed vigorously at this
point. "M'sieur sees?"
I did not.
The colonel laughed. "One of my Hurons had the inspiration to run to a
farmhouse not far away and requisition a sheet. He wrapped himself in
it, head and all, and, being Indian, it was a bagatelle to him to crawl
out on his stomach. They were pleased enough, my good fellows, when they
found they had got not only my body but also me in it."
"I can imagine, knowing Hurons, how that Huron enjoyed his success," I
said. "It's in their blood to be swift and silent and adventurous. But
they're superstitious; they're afraid of anything supernatural." I
hesitated, with a laugh in my mind at a memory. "It's not fitting that I
should swap stories with a hero of the Great War, yet--I believe you
might be amused with an adventure of one of my guides." The Frenchman,
all civil interest, disclaimed his heroism with hands and shoulders, but
smiling too--for he had small chance at disclaiming with those two
crosses on his breast.
"I shall be enchanted to hear m'sieur's tale of his guide. For the rest
I am myself quite mad over the 'sport.' I love to insanity the out of
doors and shooting and fishing. It is a regret that the service has
given me no opportunity these four years for a breathing spell in the
woods. M'sieur will tell me the tale of his guide's superstition?"
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