Adieu Leicestaire Square,
C’est un longue chemin à Tip-per-airee,
But my heart--she’s dere!’”
“Bravo! Ah, well, he’s gone on the longue chemin now--the long trail--a trail of light it must be,” murmured Lieutenant O Pips half under his breath, his eyes, keen and misty, searching that dense yellow cloud to leeward, billowing down into a ziggagging maze of trenches--the cloud thrown off by the smoking sulphur candles, of which here and there one did more than was required of it, yielded complete combustion and burst into a ragged, rose-red banner of flame, that added weirdness to the daylight scene.
Speaking of Toiney--light-hearted, raggedly romantic half-breed--who had made the supreme sacrifice, presently drew the girls’ thoughts to those living comrades-in-arms of Toiney, the American soldiers now lined up under that baleful yellow cloud, down in the invisible trenches, undergoing the training of being “put through gas,” in order to render them expert in adjusting their gas-masks directly the warning was given--the rattle sprung.
“‘Fritzie’s party,’ as you call it, seems rather halting; they haven’t brought on all the fireworks yet, have they?” suggested a third girl, known by the Council Fire as Munkwon, the Rainbow, in every-day life, as now, Arline Champion, the shell-like tint of her cheeks deepening to a hectic flush from the same expectant emotion which had paled her sisters.
“No, sometimes the chemists of the Gas Defense Department who have charge of these sham attacks, turn loose the smoke-cloud several minutes before they thicken it with the poison waves--gas waves,” the officer answered. “They send it over every old way so that no man down there may be caught napping,” with a brief excited puff of laughter.
“And I suppose this sham ‘party’ is just as dangerous for the men in the trenches here, being trained to meet gas, as the real one over there?” Arline persisted.
“Sure! With them, too, it’s the Quick or the Dead, as we say in the army!... If any one is slow about getting into his mask--otherwise his chlorine-fooler----”
It was at that moment that the whole round earth began, as it seemed, to “fool” and make believe that an earthquake heavingly rocked it. Up from the trenches came a loud, rolling report that echoed like thunder through the yellow cloud. Tearing its veil asunder, a broad sheet of flame leaped towards the sky. The ground shook under the girls’ feet. Wildly they clutched each other upon the sere skirts of Gas Valley, as this portion of the great military training-camp, where soldiers were initiated into the horrors of poison gas, was nicknamed.