II
Light and alert, he ran up the slope.
Kit followed with lagging feet.
Never a greedy fighter, for the time the lad had drunk his fill of battle. He tired of hearing his own heart; and that heart tired of its thumping. After twelve hours of the sea's large peace, here he was back again on the evil earth, where the soul is always sick, amid dangers and darkness, beastly men lurking to murder him.
Is it always so on land? he wondered. Is there no heaven on earth except at sea?—where God is because man is not.
He longed to have the waters wide about him again.
Not so the Parson. The feel of the land, firm beneath his feet, thrilled him to new life. He was on his element once more and in it: earth on earth, the warrior at war. A natural fighter, loving it whole-heartedly for its own sake, he was ready for a thousand, almost hoping for them.
Keen of eye, tight-curled, he took the slope at a brisk trot.
A path of stepping-stones led across the green towards the house; each stepping-stone a dead man sprawling face down in a swirl of green.
Kit saw it all as he had seen it then: the tail of Grenadiers, the pursuing Parson, the hounding Gentleman.
Then it had possessed him; now he only wanted to get away. Home, mother, Gwen, and an apple in the loft; soft cheeks, kind eyes, the voices of women loving him, chaffing him—these he longed for. He was tired of being a man for the time being: he wanted to be a little boy again, to be cuddled, to be loved.
And for him it was no new experience, this battle-sickness on the return to the field at evening. He had been there before. When? Where? He could not recall, yet somehow he remembered.
"One—two—three—four—five!" counted the Parson. "I thought I should never catch the last. How he ran! When I was on him he snarled back like a beaten wolf. Then he got it—whish-h-h!"
Kit trailed blindly at his heels.
That stink of dead men, would he never again get it out of his nostrils?