“I know, sir. But I’ve got written orders.” He fumbled inside his coat, produced a message-form. Stark flashed a torch on it. “You see, sir. It’s quite clear. What am I to do, sir?”
“Use your common sense, young man. You can’t charge the Boche with your sanguinary kitchens. . . .”
An orderly stumbled up; saluted Rutton; said, “The General’s been gone three hours, sir. One of the doctors just remembered him riding up and riding off again.”
“What am I to do, sir?” wailed Rutton.
But Stark was indulging himself in one real outburst: a frothing torrent of scarlet blasphemy that submerged every gilded head between Saint Omer and the Pylons of Loos. . . .
§ 4
Men under fire for the first time are not usually frightened.
Peter, re-walking the muddy road between those wailing wounded, was conscious of no fear. His orders—to find the horses, take them back through Vermelles and rejoin his Colonel at the cross-roads which the map called Corons de Rutoire—seemed simple enough. But he was in a black rage at the incompetence of those behind; and he cursed them as he pashed into the greasy trench, hauled himself out of it, tried to locate that hay-stack.
Damn that hay-stack! Where the devil could it have moved to? He saw the thing suddenly, outlined black against the saffron of a shell-burst; saw the silhouettes of horses rearing at their bridles; dashed forward. As he reached the two men, he heard the whistle of another shell; heard it stop, plop into the ground. No detonation followed.
“By the Lord an’ I’m glad to see you, sir,” ejaculated the shadow of Driver Doherty, “I’ve been thinking we’d be killed every minute.”