THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN
The German lay on a stretcher in the straw of the first dressing-station. His legs had been torn by shot. He was in pain. He looked into the faces of the men about him, the French doctors and dressers, the Belgian infantry. The lantern light was white and yellow on their faces. He drew out from the inner pocket of his mouse-colored coat a packet of letters, and from the packet the picture of a stout woman, who, like himself, was of middle-age. He handed it to the French doctor. "Meine Frau," he said.
At the outer rim of the group, a Belgian drew a knife, ran it lightly across his own throat, and pointed mockingly to the German on the stretcher.
IV
THE PIANO OF PERVYSE
The Commandant stepped down from his watch tower by the railway tracks. This watch tower was a house that had been struck but not tumbled by the bombardment. It was black and gashed, and looked deserted. That was the merit of it, for every minute of the day and night, some watcher of the Belgians sat in the window, one flight up, by the two machine guns, gazing out over the flooded fields, and the thin white strip of road that led eastward to the enemy trenches. Once, fifteen mouse-colored uniforms had made a sortie down the road and toward the house, but the eye at the window had sighted them, and let them draw close till the aim was very sure. Since then, there had been no one coming down the road. But a watcher, turn by turn, was always waiting. The Commandant liked the post, for it was the key to the safety of Pervyse. He felt he was guarding the three women, when he sat there on the rear supports of a battered chair, and smoked and peered out into the east.
He came slowly down the road,—old wounds were throbbing in his members—and, as always, turned into the half-shattered dwelling where the nurses were making their home and tending their wounded.