5
Jonathan Brachey sat moodily on the parapet. Down below, the compound (a crowded mass of roofs within a rectangle of red-gray wail) and below that the straggling village, stood out as blocked-in masses of light and shadow under the slanting rays of the morning sun.
A French youth, beside him, polishing his rifle with a greasy rag, looked up with a question.
Brachey shook his head; he had no information. He looked over toward the other pit. The Australian in command there (three nights earlier they had buried Swain) waved a carelessly jocular hand and went on nibbling a biscuit.
The thing might be over; it might not. Brachey found himself almost perversely disturbed, however, at the prospect of peace. He had supposed that he hated this dirty, bloody business. He saw no glory in fighting, merely primitive blood-lust; an outcropping of the beast in man; evidence that in his age-long struggle upward from the animal stage of existence man had yet a long, long way to climb. But from the thought of losing this intense preoccupation, of living quietly with the emphasis again placed on personal problems, he found himself shrinking. What a riddle it was!
He spoke shortly to the French youth, took up his own rifle, and led the way up the hill to the bullet-spattered farm compounds. They were quite deserted. Only the huddled, noxious dead remained. He went on up the hillside, searching all the hiding-places of those red and yellow vandals who had filled his thoughts by day and haunted his sleep at, night; but all were empty of human life. A great amount of rubbish was left—cooking utensils, knives, old Chinese-made rifles and swords, bits of uniforms. He found even a jade ring and a few strings of brass cash.
Weary of spirit he returned to the rifle pits only to find these, too, deserted. From the upper redoubt a man was waving, beckoning. Apparently the compound gate was open, and a group of soldiers standing in line outside; but these soldiers wore blue. Through his glasses he surveyed the moving dots near the village; none wore red and yellow.
The man was still waving from the redoubt. The French youth, he found now, was looking up at him, that eager question still in his eyes. He nodded. With a sudden wild shout the boy ran down the hill, waving bis rifle over his head.
So it was peace—sudden, enigmatic. Brachey sat again on the parapet. Griggsby Doane was doubtless there (Brachey knew nothing of his journey; he had not seen Betty. What could he say to him, to the father whom Betty loved?
This wouldn't do, of course. He rose, a set dogged expression on his long, always serious face, and went slowly down the hill; and with only a nod to this person and that got to his tent. Once within, he closed the flaps and sat on the cot. He discovered then that he had brought with him one of the strings of cash, and jingled it absently against his knee.