“The bravest man in the old —nth, where all were brave, dropped behind as he bent over the fallen captain. There was a quivering smile of recognition just as the jerking heap settled into quiet; then, as if he waited for it, a slender blur in horizon blue sprang to his side and swept forward with the Battalion—though the captain still lay where she had fallen!”
Fouquet gripped his comrade, arm and crutch together, with a cry.
“Did you see our brave captain salute as he passed? Joyously I shouted as I fell into step beside him, but—I dropped back—I could not keep that pace! Barres—Barres—you saw them? You must have seen them? It was the old —nth come back to save their women from the last hellish trap set by fiends! We know they had the right. This was their battleground where once before they had saved an army of France!”
Lieutenant Agor was leaning across the table with staring eyes: “Then—that was what I—saw, sir?” He turned to his commander, “I told you it was like the fog blowing in off Frisco bay, and—”
Captain Hailes half rose, “My lieutenant said he lost you when a mist obscured the contact platoon. He said he saw—I—thought it was shell shock—I meant to send him behind the lines—”
Barres shook his head slowly as he caught Fouquet about the shoulder.
“Mon ami—I saw—I know! Very low I flew over the gap to-day when it broke and widened. I felt the White Battalion first, rushing through the planes—then I saw them—a mist of the old red and blue with wondrous swords!” His voice sank low, “From above I saw one who led them—a shining one who, even as we have read, smote the camp of the Assyrians”.
“It was the old —nth that followed. I knew them!” His voice caught. “Did you see the rascals in the third squad goose-stepping as they closed in on the Hun?” With a break of unsteady laughter, “It was always their final joke with the German, sir, before they got him. No one could break them of it! Fouquet—we know! It was the old —nth, our White Battalion!”
“A White Battalion!” Agor repeated the words slowly, still staring.
The aviator shifted his crutch and drew himself erect. “Mes amis, the Huns fling the taunt that France has been bled white! To us it means a White Army—a crowding host killed in battle—the red life of gallant youth given so gloriously that it cannot die!