Just then the tarpaulin came off. Jack Adeler turned a handle, and the machine-gun went “trrrrrrr,” like an automobile racing without a muffler.
Ten men about the machine toppled over, and the rest fled terrified, throwing away their guns as they ran, scattering into the darkness, bellowing horrified fear.
Instantly, Hike switched on the contact. The Hustle bumped along the soft ground, stuck a moment in the sand, then went up at a long slant, dangerously close to the fire. In a second she was running smooth, as though on cushions of eiderdown. Jack Adeler, stopping only to cover the machine-gun, came down to the passenger seat beside Hike.
Hike’s nerves had been terrible shaken by the sight of men falling over, struck by the hurricane of shells from the machine-gun; and it was all he could do to keep his levers on the jiggle. His nerve was fairly gone, for once.
Through the crack of the motor, he shouted to the Lieutenant, “I hope they weren’t killed—wounded.”
“I shot low,” yelled back Jack. “(Steer a little more to the west, there.) I shot low, and I don’t think any got killed—though there’s a lot of men that won’t walk—and won’t go plundering innocent rancheros—for a while.... Well, I had a good nap, and our little party back there has waked me up nicely. Better let me drive. I know this country fairly well.”
Hike was glad to let him take the levers. Creeping back to the freight-platform, and covering himself with a fold of the tarpaulin against the piercing night-wind, he shivered off to sleep; worrying a little over the wounded men; hoping they were not killed; picturing the glorious excitement of a game on the athletic field at Santa Benicia, where they fought their best, but did not try to kill each other, to leave each other a mass of dead flesh on the field.
For the first time, Hike really understood that war is a horrible thing, to be prevented as far as possible. He remembered a friend of his father’s, a brave, high-ranking officer and a good commander, who had often said that war was a crime, which the Army ought to prevent, instead of trying to bring it on. He was glad, as he lay there thinking, that he was with a man like Lieutenant Adeler, who also hated war, and who was coming down here not to make war, but to prevent the treacherous fighting of Welch. Welch was the sort of man who liked to bring about war.
He hoped that the tetrahedral, as used by the Army, would be so terrible a thing that it would prevent other nations from making war.
With the picture of the poor greasers, and a couple of Americans, writhing on the ground, mowed down by the machine-gun, bloody and in agonized pain, Hike prayed, simply and sincerely, for the end of all war.