“God be with you, Joe! He will—remember that.”
“Yes, sir—if you say so.” And Joe walked away, less “shaky” than he had come.
Then, presently, it was the “Zero” hour. With the first boom and crash of the covering barrage the men were up and over the top. The farthest man in the line was Joe. No, not the farthest, though Joe had been assigned that place, for beyond and beside him, as he went over, was Robert Black.
CHAPTER XIX
A SCARLET FEATHER
Dear Sis:
I’m going to cease setting down the big stuff for a space, while I write to you. I’m just back with a whole skin from spending the night up a tree watching this man’s army pull off a great stunt in the way of a surprise for the enemy. I’ve sent off my stuff for my paper and am now resting up—but a letter is due you, and I’ve found a way to get it to you by special delivery. The messenger starts in half an hour by motorcycle for your sector, and vows he’ll put it in your hands as soon as he’s handed over his dispatches to the C. O. So I can let myself go a bit—if I scrawl fast.
I’ve had great luck this last month in meeting up with at least three people whom you’ll like to hear about. First:—R. M. B.—by the merest chance, for an hour later I’d have missed him. I simply turned a corner in a little French town where I’d stopped with an officer who was taking me with him up to the Front, and ran square into a black-eyed chap with a cross on his collar who was so tanned and so husky I didn’t snap to for a full minute. He did, though—and had me gripped with a grip like a steel trap. “Cary Ray!” he shouted. I knew the voice—I couldn’t forget that voice in a hurry—and of course instantly then I knew the man. Jolly! Jane, you ought to see him.
Well, he hadn’t a minute to spare for me, unless I’d go with him. “Sure thing,” I agreed. “I’ve got an hour to spare while Major Ferguson checks up with G. H. Q. here. What’s your little party?”
“It’s a burial party,” said he, looking me in the eye, same as usual. “If you haven’t had that particular experience, it won’t hurt you, and on the way we can talk things over.”
As it happened I’d passed up the funerals, thus far, being occupied exclusively with the living and those on the other side I wanted to see dead. Anyhow, it was worth it to have an hour with this particular chaplain, whatever job he was at. So I went along. I haven’t time to describe it to you here, but you can bet it rated a special half column for my paper. It was a mighty simple little affair, no frills, just a group of sober doughboys, a flag, some wooden crosses, and a firing squad—and R. M. B. reading the service. But don’t you think “the Resurrection and the Life” didn’t get over to us!