"It is a good joke," the colonel said. "But I fear it is harsh on the private."
The captain shrugged. Wine was poured. In a few minutes they heard heavy footsteps outside the tent. "He is here!" the captain cried. The officers rushed forward. Hugo stood outside the tent with the cannon they had requested lifted over his head in one hand. With that same hand clasped on the breach, he set it down. The colonel paled and gulped. "Name of the mother of God! He has brought it."
Hugo nodded. "It was as nothing, my colonel. Now I will show you what we men from Colorado can do. Watch."
They eyed him. There was a grating sound beneath his feet. Those who were quickest of vision saw his body catapult through the air high over their heads. It landed, bounced prodigiously, vanished.
Captain Crouan coughed and swallowed. He faced his superiors, trying to seem nonchalant. "That, gentlemen, is the sort of thing the Colorados do—for sport."
The colonel recovered first. "It is not human. Gentlemen, we have been in the presence of the devil himself."
"Or the Good Lord."
The captain shook his head. "He is a man, I tell you. In Colorado all the men are like that. He told me so himself. When he first enlisted, he came to me and asked for a special commission to go to Berlin and smash the Reich—to bring back the Kaiser himself. I thought he was mad. I made him peel potatoes. He did not say any more foolish things. He was a good soldier. Then the battle came and I saw him, not believing I saw him, standing on the parapet and wielding his rifle like the lightning, killing I do not know how many men. Hundreds certainly, perhaps thousands. Ah, it is as I said, the Colorados are the finest soldiers on earth. They are more than men."
"He comes!"
Hugo burst from the sky, moving like a hawk. He came from the direction of the lines, many miles away. There was a bundle slung across his shoulder. There were holes in his uniform. He landed heavily among the officers and set down his burden. It was a German. He dropped to the ground.