And the officers followed him along the trenches, crying to us, “Prepare to charge!”
He sang of the ice breaking in the rivers—the groan of ice rotting in the lakes under the softness of the new life—of the frost coming up out of the fallows, leaving them wet-black and gleaming-rich. He sang of Spring, the spring-plowing, the heaviness of our labor, with spring lust in our veins, and the crude love in our hearts which we could only articulate in kisses and passion.
A roar from us at that—for the forgotten world was rushing home—the world of our maidens and our women.... He sang of the churches—sang of Poland, sang of Finland—of the churches and the long Sabbaths, the ministry of the gentle, irresistible Christ, of the Mary who mothered Him and mothered us all.
We were roaring like school-boys now behind him—the officer-men shouting to us to stand in our places and prepare to charge.
... He was singing of the Spring again—of the warm breath that comes up over the hills and plains—even to our little fields. On he went singing, and I followed like a dog or a child—hundreds of others following—the menacing voices just stabbing in through the song of open weather and the smell of the ground.... My father had sung it to me—the song of the soil, the song from the soil. And the smell of the stables came home, and the ruminating cattle at evening, the warm smell of the milking and the red that shot the dusk.... My mother taking the pails in the purple evening.
And this about us was the soldiery of Russia—the reek of powder, the iron frost, and the dead that moved for our eyes in the dip of the white valley. And each of us saw our field, our low earth-thatched barns, and each of us saw our mothers, and every man’s father sang.... We cried to him, when he halted a moment—and our hearts, they were burning in his steps—burning, and not with hatred.
Now he sang of the Springtime—and, my God—of our maidens! On the road from her house, I had sung it—coming home in the night from her house—when, in that great happiness which a man knows but once, I had leaped in the softness of the night, my heart traveling up the moon-ray in the driven flame of her kiss. (She did not sleep that night, nor I, for the husk of the world had been torn away.) ... He sang our maidens back to us—to each man, his maiden—their breasts near, and shaken with weeping. They held out our babes, to lure us home—crying “Come back!” to us....
And some had not seen the latest babe at her breast; and some of us only longed for that which we knew—the little hands and the wondering eyes at her skirts—hands that had helped us over the first rough mysteries of fatherhood.
And now I glimpsed the face of Chautonville in the mass—the open mouth. It was not the face that I had seen. For he had lied to me, as he had lied to the officers, and this was the face of an angel, and so happy. Long had he dreamed and long had he waited for this moment—and happy, he was, as a child on a great white horse. He was not singing us across the red-white valley. He was singing us home.
Then I heard the firing, and saw the officers trying to reach him, but we were there. We laughed and called to him, “Sing us the maidens again!”... “For I have a maiden—” a man said.... “Sing us the good Christ.” ... “For I was called to the ministry—” another cried.... “Sing of the Spring and the mothers at the milking—” for we all had our mothers who do not die.... He was singing of our homes in the north country—singing as if he would sing the Austrians home—and the Germans—and would to God that he had!