“But I haf not dorn up my American cidizen papers—Nein!” exclaimed the German, earnestly. “Dose I haf kept. I gome across to fight for mein Faderland—dot vas orders. Ja! But mein American cidizenship papers I haf kept, and ven der war is ofer I shall go back to Brooklyn and once more an American citizen be, undill der next war. Ja! You haf not understood, but dot is der vay of it. Ja!”
“Goostave,” said McDermott, “ye have too many countries workin' f'r ye. But y'r takin' ordhers from m'silf now—do ye get that? C'n ye play that musical insthrumint there by the window?”
“Ja!” said Gustave. “Dot gun I can vork. Dot is der Lewis machine gun. Id is not so good a gun as our machine gun, for our machine gun haf been a colossal sugcess, but id is a goot gun.”
“Ye been fightin' f'r the Kaiser f'r three or four years, Goostave,” said McDermott, menacing him with his rifle, “but this mornin' I'll be afther seein' that ye do a bit av work f'r thim citizenship papers, an', later, ye can go to hell, if ye like, an' naturalize y'rsilf in still a third country. Ye will shoot Germans wid that gun till I get the hang av the mechanism m'silf. And thin I will shoot Germans wid that gun. But furst, ye will give me that fancy tin soup-bowl ye're wearin'.”
Gustave handed over his helmet. McDermott put it on his red head.
“I've been thinkin',” said McDermott, “will I jine this war, or will I not jine it. An' the only way ye c'n tell do ye like a thing or do ye not is to thry it wance. Wid y'r assistance, Goostave, I'll thry it this mornin', if anny more av it comes my way.”
More of it was coming his way. The Germans, tired of trifling with the small British force which held the village, had brought up the better part of a division during the night and were marshaling the troops for their favorite feat of arms, an overwhelming frontal attack en masse. The British had likewise received reinforcements, drawing from the north and from the south every man the hard-pressed lines could spare. But they were not many, perhaps some three thousand men in all, to resist the massed assault, with the railroad for its objective, which would surely come with dawn. If troops were needed in the village they were no less needed on the lines that flanked it. The little town, which had been the scene of so much desperate skirmishing the day before and during the first half of the night, was now about to become the ground of something like a battle.
“There's a French division on the way,” said the British colonel in command in the village to one of his captains. “If we can only hold them for an hour——”
He did not finish the sentence. As he spoke the German bombardment, precedent to the infantry attack, began to comb the western fringes of the town and the railroad line behind, searching for the hurriedly-digged and shallow trenches, the improvised dugouts, the shell holes, the cellars and the embankments where the British lay. The British guns to the rear of the village made answer, and the uproar tore the mists of dawn to tatters. A shell fell short, into the middle of the Grande Place, and McDermott saw the broken motor car against which the sleeping lieutenant had leaned the day before vanish into nothingness; and then a house directly opposite the Hôtel Fauçon jumped into flame and was no more. Looking out across the back of the stooping Gustave at the window, McDermott muttered, “I dunno as I w'u'd want to jine that war.” And then he bellowed in Gustave Schmidt's ear: “Cut loose! Cut loose wid y'rgun! Cut loose!”
“I vill not!” shrieked Gustave. “Mein Gott! Dat is mein own regiment!”