“Ye lie!” shouted McDermott. “Ye will!” He thrust a bit of bayonet into the fleshiest part of the German's back.
“I vill! I vill!” cried Gustave.
“Ye will that,” said McDermott, “an' the less damned nonsinse I hear from ye about y'r own rigimint the betther f'r ye! Ye're undher me own ordhers till I c'n make up me mind about this war.” The mists were rising. In the clearing daylight at the eastern end of the square, as if other clouds were moving forward with a solid front, appeared the first gray wave of the German infantry. Close packed, shoulder to shoulder, three deep, they came, almost filling the space from side to side of the Grande Place, moving across that open stretch against the British fire with a certain heavy-footed and heavy-brained contempt of everything before them. Ten steps, and the British machine guns and rifles caught them. The first wave, or half of it, went down in a long writhing windrow, across the east end of the square, and in the instant that he saw it squirm and toss before the trampling second wave swept over it and through it, the twisting gray-clad figures on the stones reminded McDermott of the heaps of heaving worms he used to see at the bottom of his bait-can when he went fishing as a boy.
“Hold that nozzle lower, Goostave!” he yelled to his captive. “Spray thim! Spray thim! Ye're shootin' over their heads, ye lumberin' Dutchman, ye!”
“Gott!” cried Gustave, as another jab of the bayonet urged him to his uncongenial task.
And then McDermott made one of the few errors of his military career. Whether it was the French brandy he had drunk to excess the night before, or whether it was the old bung-starter wound on his head, which always throbbed and jumped when he became excited, his judgment deserted him for an instant. For one instant he forgot that there must be no instants free from the immediate occupation of guiding and directing Gustave.
“Let me see if I can't work that gun m'self,” he cried.
As he relaxed his vigilance, pushing the German to one side, the Boche suddenly struck him upon the jaw. McDermott reeled and dropped his rifle; before he could recover himself, the German had it. The weapon swung upward in the air and—just then a shell burst outside the open window of the Hôtel Fauçon.
Both men were flung from their feet by the concussion. For a moment everything was blank to McDermott. And then, stretching out his hand to rise, his fingers encountered something smooth and hard upon the floor. Automatically his grasp closed over it and he rose. At the same instant the German struggled to his feet, one hand behind his back, and the other extended, as if in entreaty.
“Kamerad,” he whined, and even as he whined he lurched nearer and flung at McDermott a jagged, broken bottle. McDermott ducked, and the dagger-like glass splintered on his helmet. And then McDermott struck—once. Once was enough. The Boche sank to the floor without a groan, lifeless. McDermott looked at him, and then, for the first time, looked at what he held in his own hand, the weighty thing which he had wielded so instinctively and with such ferocity. It was the bung starter of the Hôtel Fauçon.