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Show p Li tip ci di lib ti db ci cj u u Jl O HLBO (LOSutB8lO By claude bronson I tr? CPJ7JC?JPCPJCPCPC7JC?J7 ' JK SOUVENIRS?" said W) rpS5Tl the Red Cross vol-Jr vol-Jr I unteer. "Oh,afew." J i He eroped with , scrawny hands that tS . I Tr trembled in the torn Iwi ' v If? jacket, spattered iS.TAittt.i uWill brown with blood tfllMPM that was not his own. He passed two little fragments to me, and his tired yes lighted up -with a gleam of transient enthusiasm. "They're not very picturesque," he explained apologetically. "I've turned better looking stuff German helmets hel-mets ripped with shrapnel, cavalry saddles sad-dles studded with steel aerial darts and the like. But they hadn't a story. They are being hawked around ports of clearance clear-ance like junk. I could have purchased them and brought them home and wondered. won-dered. But these!" He stared down at the two grimy objects In his hand. "The twisted thing," he said, "ia a heel plate the kind the Bodies use to save shoe leather. I got it at the Red Chateau. It was red, too, when I saw. It only the glistening tile roof that had earned it its name was gone. So was the doghouse, and Poilu Pierre Le Fevre. That chip of limestone is from the doghouse. dog-house. It was literally chipped to pieces. Twenty minutes' fire, they say, it endured. en-dured. And within the French beast, as they called him, fought back. 'Tie was frail, they said, and undersized. under-sized. He had none of the vivacity and animation that has made the French soldier sol-dier so picturesque and lovable. His face was flat and his eyes were dull. Earlier In the war they wouldn't have wanted him. They would have rejected him for his blinking eyes and thin, bowed legs. But he sot to the front, all right 1S17 class, I think. He didn't talk much, but his company seems to know that there was a girl back in Paris, and that he was tremendously serious about his share in the hostilities. Seemed to think that a man had just so much living time allotted allot-ted to him after being summoned to the colors, and that the success of France depended upon each man, in his allotted time, getting in a decisive stroke. Company Com-pany endeavor seemed slow, and trench warfare frayed his nerves. They used to laugh at him. But for all his nearsightedness near-sightedness and flat features and tiny, shaky legs, he had the spirit. "He had the girl's picture with him. Used to look at it reverently once a day. You know the type. Pretty, In a sharp-featured, sharp-featured, hard-eyed fashion. Artist's model, from the Latin quarter. But he seemed to have reason to believe that she loved him. And. he never intended to go back. That's the funny part of it. He had no religion save a sort of dogged fatalism. He said that he'd never muster mus-ter out. He was right. "His company held the apex of an awkward jag In the line east of Verdun. It stuck like a barb into the lacerated front of the storming Germans. They raked it. hammered it, dusted it out about twice daily with every kind of artillery ar-tillery that they could bring to bear. But despite the shrieking of the Boches' heavier artillery and the impudent sputter sput-ter of their shrapnel and machine guns, the Trench Just dug themselves in, and lived on after one would have sworn that every inch of ground in their territory had buried a pound of steel. I suppose It had. But there was the other factor. It hadn't all fallen at once, like rain, but had swished around in torrents, like a ( garden hose. Think of that th next time you see a bird's-eye view of a battle-ground. One can't dodge a shower, but it is comparatively simple to evad9 the spray of a garden hose. ! "Pierre's company evaded It, excepting, except-ing, of course, the customary and to be expected decimation. Pierre cursed at the process so much that the more devout de-vout of his comrades averred it would bring ill luck. It never feasod Pierre. He cursed and sniped, and slept, and waited for his time for the moment when, as he had promised the girl, he would do his bit for France. "Pressure got pretty heavy around Verdun. There was too much ground to hold and too many angles in the primary denfenses to be enfiladed, when the enemy en-emy made a successful trench-grabbing sortie. Orders came to fall back. Pierre's flat face blanched with apprehension. appre-hension. He swore he'd stay alone, that the commanding officers were cowards, that the men should mutiny and remain. re-main. "They dragged him along, foaming and cursing and gibbering. They retreated, re-treated, under cover of darkness, almost three miles. It shortened and strengthened strength-ened the line. Strategically it was worthy of that master of conservative strategy. Papa Joffre himself. But the little, dwarfed fatalist didn't know anything any-thing about strategy. They had retreated retreat-ed from the Boches. It was enough! Napoleon, in eternity, wept! "They passed the ghost of a tiny town. Moonlight softened the rents in its scarred and jagged walls. They passed the Red Chateau, roofless now from stray shells and tall against the night sky. Tomorrow the Boches would eat their noonday soup from the steaming belly of the trundled kitchen in its shade and under its doubtful protection. But tonight it was still the free ground of La Belle France! "Roll call found Pierre Le Fevre missing. It was too bad. His spindly legs had given out, or he had gone where the ishrapnel had sent others. The newer new-er trenches were fresh, clean, free from water and stale smells. The men forgot the stragglers and slept. "The Boches marched past the Red Chateau. It bulked gloomily against the steel gray sky, roofless, its red tile shattered into dust that rose like red ghosts and danced in the morning breeze like' phantom flames. The artillery fire had lulled. There seemed a tacit agreement agree-ment to change grips. The Germans advanced, ad-vanced, seeping into every redoubt, communication com-munication trench and shell pit that the retiring foe had forsaken. They marched carelessly, casually, in groups. "A hundred of them debouched into the courtyard of the Red Chateau. Sheltered from French range finders, they could light fires and loll around its stone floors. But there was a sudden sputtering sound in the court, and the thud of falling bodies. A man with a pale face smeared with blood fled down the hill.. Others came running up. The sputtering sound rose in intensity, and men sprawled around or lay very still in the somber arc of the shattered court. Their answering fire stabbed the night with flame-trailing flashes. They shot aimlessly, wildly. "The masked battery couldn't be found. A machine gun raked the walls of the chateau, sending sand and stone fragments flying and raining Into the court. "The sputtering roar continued at intervals. in-tervals. Men farther back crumpled and writhed and became still, tiny flecks In the pale moonlight. Cursing with fury, the Germans raced through the broken arches of the garden, around the broad sweep of the driveway, and out to the stone ruins of the servants' quarters. Out of the night something hummed steadily like a gigantic nocturnal wasp. "A tall, steel helmeted Bavarian shouted something. He pointed toward a squat structure surmounted on either side by a reclining dog, chiseled six feet high in stone. Between them was a single sin-gle opening, a circular door about eighteen eight-een inches across. - "Out of it, in a livid tongue that even faintly illuminated the stone eye of the graven dogs burst the fire of a machine gun. Men rushed it, and their numbers shrunk with each step until in the blood-spattered blood-spattered driveway the last had failed to reach the goal. A machine gun peppered it, eating away the teeth of the stone dogs, and their ears, and the huge paws. Dust rose from the disintegrating limestone lime-stone doghouse, but the machine gun's rumble, with pauses for tape changes, continued. "They finally directed their fire successfully suc-cessfully into the circular opening. The screaming of the mitrailleuse ceased. "They Impaled the occupant of the doghouse upon bayonets and dragged him forth. He was shattered beyond recognition. So was the machine gun, with Its broken tripod, that he had lugged with his feeble strength from the ruck of the French retreat. The zinc tag identified him. And they hurled him w wwi ILJL with their own dead into the Red Chateau Cha-teau and set it on fire. "The heel plate I dug from the ruins a month later. And the fragment of etone I picked up beneath the paw of one of the graven sentinels of the 4td Chateau. Pierre Le Fevre, the fatalist, the man who thought it was wrong to retreat, had accounted for a war strength company, more or less. In eternity the Little Corporal had ceased to weep!" Copyright, 1917, by J. Kceley |