“Are you men from C Company of the Sixth?”
“You’re damned right we are, buddy. Have you got anything to say about it?”
“No. Only you’d better hurry up and join them or you’ll be up for a shoot for desertion.”
“Why, whaddya mean? Where are they?” Several men spoke at once.
“Well,” said the orderly importantly, “they were getting ready to go over the top when I left.”
“Great Christ!” Ryan lamented. “We’d better hurry. Lead the way, orderly.”
Flanked by rows of waving wheat, the party plodded along the dusty, narrow road.
“Now we are in it for sure,” Hicks thought. “And me especially. If Major Adams hears about this I’ll be hung higher than a kite.” But he forgot the possibility of a court martial in his thinking of the platoon and of where they were and of where he was soon to be.
The platoon was found in a clump of woods, a little to the left of the road. In front of them was the spectacle of what a French village looked like after it had been subjected to long-range artillery fire for three days. The spire of the inevitable little church had been blown off; there was not a house or barn whose side or roof had not been pierced by a shell. Mortar and glass were strewn about the streets, where they mingled with articles of household use. Beside the door of one of the houses a Red Cross flag had been fastened, and inside the medical detachment were making preparations for visitors.