“Say, colonel, you know that woods we were talking about.” Martin pointed to a map on the wall. “The boches are using it. My men have reported circulation there, and they’ve been putting up camouflage. How many shells will it take to gas ’em out? I’d like to get ’em out of there.”
“Have to have brigade orders to use gas....”
Blammm! came a detonation unpleasantly near, but still beyond the headquarters. The colonel cocked his ear. “Boy, don’t you make them no shorter,” he drawled.
The adjutant entered. “General’s here. Come to mess. He and the colonel are coming down-stairs now. All in.”
All filed into the mess-room. The younger officers had been full of boyish spirits and pranks, but decorum settled on them as they entered the door. They seemed suddenly to grow up and to acquire the demeanor of maturity, and stood erect in stately manner while Kendall was presented to the general and the colonel.... And then the meal proceeded. Kendall wondered where the food came from, but asked no embarrassing questions about the source of supplies. There was chicken, there were potatoes, there was fresh asparagus, there was custard pudding, there were cheese and coffee and cherries—and then cigars.
“Don’t get the idea we pass cigars at every mess,” whispered a daring lieutenant in Kendall’s ear. “Just throwin’ ourselves in honor of the general....”
The bombardment had increased in violence during the meal, had increased to such a degree that Kendall thought rather more of falling shells than of food.... There was absolutely no protection. A shell might crash down upon them through the frail structure at will.... But nobody appeared to mind. Kendall reflected that he, perhaps, did not appear to mind, and wondered if the others were experiencing the same sensations as he. He did not see how it could be otherwise. Or had they found some magic philosophy which rendered them immune to reflections upon sudden death?... The general told the colonel a humorous anecdote, and the colonel replied to it with another equally pointless to Kendall’s way of thinking. Why in thunder, he wondered, didn’t they get through with this meal and go to a place a bit more sheltered?... But the seniors chatted on, apparently with placid enjoyment of Philippine and Cuban reminiscences, all to the accompaniment of bursting high-explosive shells, one of which could have obliterated that farm-house and all the men it contained.
But an end arrived. The general and the colonel arose, and it became etiquette for the juniors to arise as well. The dignitaries disappeared to the colonel’s quarters up the stairs, and a few of the younger officers went to the adjutant’s office across the hall, Kendall and Jimmy with them. The telephone on Martin’s desk buzzed and Jimmy lifted the receiver. He looked up with a frown.
“This nut down the road wants to know if the general’s killed yet.”
“Did he say general over that ’phone?”