"My boy, they must be aware of you back there at headquarters. You know you have been mentioned in dispatches a number of times as resourceful, altogether fearless, capable in leadership and——"
"I don't know how to thank you sufficiently—" Herbert began, but the lieutenant shut him off.
"Don't try it, then! Merely justice, fair dealing, appreciation, recognition of worth. We aim toward that in the army; military standards, you know. Well, as I was going to say, there is a general advance ordered, in conjunction with our Allies. We want to push the Huns out of their trenches and make them dig in farther on, somewhere. If the attempt is successful, the engineers will place Susan in a new pit somewhere ahead. But the main thing you want to know is what your duty will be."
The lieutenant settled back with a half smile; half an expression of deep concern.
"They expect us fighting men in the army, and in the navy, too, I suppose, to have or to show not one whit of sentiment. We are expected to be no more subject to such things than the cog-wheels of a machine. But they can no more teach us that than they can teach us not to be hungry, or to want sleep. I have begun to think, of late, that they don't expect us to sleep, either.
"Well, my boy, if you would like to see an example of military brevity I will show it to you. Ahem! Corporal, report to-night to regimental headquarters, with your company; Captain Leighton, Advanced Barracks. By order of Colonel Walling.
"But hold on! Here's a little of the absence of military brevity. It appears that they so admire your record back there at headquarters that they have picked you out for almost—no doubt you think me pessimistic, or a calamity howler—for almost certain injury or death. My boy, I wanted you to stay here with me until we are relieved, which will be soon, but now they are going to take you away from me. An old man like me—I am getting on toward fifty—gets to have a lot of feeling in such matters. He likes to think of his military family, of his boys, and becomes more than usually attached to some of them. But let that pass.
"They're going, I am told, to put you on special scouting duty before the drive. Of course, you'll go and glory in it, but, my boy—Well, good luck to you; good luck! If you get out all right, look me up when we are all relieved. Look us all up; the men will all wish it."
Herbert's leave taking of the pit platoon and the squads in the adjoining trench, that night, was one that was more fitting for a lot of school cronies than hardened soldiers bent upon the business of killing. But human nature is human all the world over and under pretty much all conditions.