Herbert saw his two boys go out on the hill with a feeling of nothing else than sorrow. To be sure this was the game of war, but he could not help feeling a marked aversion for the possibilities uppermost in this death-grapple business.
For his men particularly and for all his fellows in battle, companions in discomfort, danger, suffering, perhaps death, was the lad concerned. Especially did he feel this now regarding Roy. His chum, ever bright, smiling, jesting, never grumbling nor down-hearted, was going out there to be the target for men trained in this wholesale killing business and eager to play their part. It was true that the boy could hardly be caught napping and he would probably give a little better than he was sent, but still there were the chances of warfare, often more potent, more death-dealing than the best laid plans.
Herb had never since babyhood known anything of a mother's teachings that to the many well-balanced, gentle-dispositioned lads often mean so much for good. His father had well cared for him when he was a little fellow and then he, too, had died without ever having rightly influenced the boy at a time when this would have counted best. And though Herbert's inclinations had all been healthy, clean, vigorously manly and honest, it is doubtful if he had said or thought a prayer a half dozen times in his life, or that he really knew how to pray in the commonly practised manner of those who habitually turn to a Higher Power.
But now, watching Roy and Dave ascend the stepped slope out of the pit and by Herb's order begin to slip off cautiously, screening themselves behind various obstacles and making for the objects of shelter below, the young corporal was suddenly overcome with a dejection very unseemly for an officer engaged in fighting. Unseen, the boy bowed his head against one of the timber stanchions of the shelter.
"Oh, God, if you're willing, if it isn't laid down in the Book of Fate otherwise, don't let that chum of mine get killed! He's too fine a chap; he brings too much happiness to others in this world and does too much good generally for him to become the victim of a bullet or bayonet, or anything like that! And the other fellow, too; he seems like a good sort of fellow. Most of my men are; all in this pit are worth being kept alive. I'm sure of it! But, of course, some of us must get it; be killed or wounded some way. So don't think I mind being one, if that would spare the percentage and spare these other fellows who have homes and people to mourn for them. Anyway, God, above all, no matter what may be going to happen, see to it that we all do our duty and give us what ought to be coming to us if we don't."
[CHAPTER XI]
A Double Surprise
Roy and Dave had come back unharmed from the first sniping expedition of the squad against the enemy's snipers. The former was elated at having seen a German who had crawled out of the enemy trench some distance into "No Man's Land," as the space between the opposing trenches has been nicknamed, stick his head and gun above a fallen tree trunk, shoot at Roy, and upon Roy's returning the compliment go down quickly, not to reappear. The German's bullet had chipped a bit of stone off not five inches from Roy's nose.