Thrifty Stock, and Other Stories

by Ben Ames Williams

They broke; they poured across the stream, wading, swimming, drowning. They broke in flight to escape the merciless guns. And the French planes overhead till dark was fully fallen marked their going, and signalled the guns that harassed the fleeing men.

Before that, the Frenchmen had been silenced; the Frenchmen of Jacques Fontaine, in the old chateau. There were some few of them still unwounded; there were others who breathed and groaned as they slowly died. There were not enough of them to keep the bridge clear; but that duty no longer was required of them. They had held up a division, till the French armies could come up and rout it. And the Germans, flinging one last charge against the old chateau, drew off to the north and left Jacques Fontaine and his men, masters of the field.

VII

I was with the army that came up to that bridge at dawn, my friends. And I was one of those who saw, floating in the first light above the ruined walls of the old chateau, a flicker of glorious color.... A banner, floating there....

Our skirmishers were flung across, pressing northward. Our engineers swarmed upon the ruined bridge, rebuilding....

And one patrol of men turned aside, by the road that led toward the chateau. They went to solve this riddle, gentlemen. They went to discover who it was that had set there, the banner of France.

They went carefully, one man ahead, others behind. They feared a trap; they did not understand....

I was with them. We came, thus, to a turn in the road; and we rounded it, and we saw our advance man at the halt, upon his horse, in the road ahead.

Toward this man were marching, down the road from the chateau, four men.

One of these men was tall, and strong, and bulky. And there was a scarf about his chest; and the scarf was red. Of the others, two marched proudly; two who had come unscathed through that hell where the chateau had stood. And the fourth, though there was a smeared bandage about his face and eyes, so that he held to the arm of Jacques Fontaine; this fourth man, my friends, held his head as high as any; and his shoulders were erect, and his steps were firm.