“They all say that. Why didn’t he refuse?”
“Oh, for several reasons.” The surgeon remarked Bob’s flushed face and quick breath and evaded an argument. “I think we’ll go now, Colonel, if you please,” he added. “My patient isn’t quite the man he was yet. He’s talked enough.”
“Good luck, sir, with the attack,” said Bob as the colonel rose. “I wish I could be there.”
“You made it possible,” said the colonel. “That’s something.”
More tired than he realized, Bob fell into a doze when he was left alone, thinking vaguely of the coming engagement in which he could have no share.
The attack, however, did not come off as the colonel hoped, for, by the middle of Christmas night, the few stars were hidden by the clouds which had spread over the heavens, the wind howled around the little village of Nikolsk and snow began to fall heavily. Dawn broke, about half-past eight, the feeblest, greyest glimmer of light over the snow-fields. From the sky fell such myriads of snowflakes that it made Bob dizzy to watch them. The wind drove them like white flocks in every direction, mostly, it seemed, up against the window from which the orderly beat the drifts every half hour. The icy wind penetrated the cracks and chilled the room, in spite of the big porcelain stove’s unfailing heat.
Bob knew that to-day neither Allies nor enemy would think of an attack. It was as much as life was worth to venture abroad in the increasing storm. A stranger was almost certain to get lost on the snow-fields, once the curtain of falling snow had cut him off from landmarks. The never-lessening descent of the snowflakes fascinated his eyes. He lay motionless, in his listless weakness, watching them, until his neighbor the Russian roused him from his reverie with his eager, pleading voice.
“Gospodin American, will you listen to me? I do not wish to be an annoyance, but perhaps you will be glad to hear——”
Bob turned toward him, curious at this insistence. The Russian lay on his pillows, looking spent and weary, his haggard face white above his unshaven cheeks, but his eyes brighter than ever in the dull grey light of the snow-storm.
“Where were you wounded?” Bob asked him.