Further afield small parties of men, medical attendants, and stretcher-bearers, were moving to and fro, gathering in the wounded who had fallen on the skirmish line.
At one point, on the edge of a strip of woodland, lounged the members of a company that had been recalled from the front. Their captain had gone down into the woods, fifty yards distant perhaps, to a spring that gushed out of a bank at the foot of an old oak. This captain was Stephen Landray. Having satisfied his thirst he now sat on the trunk of a fallen tree with a battered tin-cup held idly in his hand. There was nothing of the boy left; and in other ways as well, the physical strain, the hardship, and the suffering he had endured had told on him. His skin was dry and sallow and his worn uniform hung loosely to his erect, nervous figure. Now and again his glance sought the men on the edge of the wood. He had seen soldiers resting before in their intervals of inaction, but he realized that there was a difference now; some subtle change had taken place in their mental relation to their surroundings that said as plainly as words—it is over. Yet curiously enough the realization of this seemed not entirely satisfactory. With it had come a sense of loss at the sudden withdrawal of a purpose, that had been all absorbing and to which they had clung tenaciously; but now that the accomplishment of this purpose was immanent they seemed to feel only the loss of what for four years had been the main motive in their lives.
Landray had gone through that very process himself, only he had carried his speculations beyond the immediate present, and into the future. He would go back to Benson to his wife, and to the old ties; and then what? He had said many times that he would be glad enough when the war was over; and yet now that it seemed the general conviction that it was over, he was conscious of no special satisfaction, and he felt neither enthusiasm nor elation; on the contrary he was strangely quiet, strangely repressed. He wondered what he would take with him from his four years of soldiering that would be useful in the struggle he saw before him; he wondered how these thousands of men would be absorbed in the ordinary channels of life. There was a movement among his men, and he glanced again in their direction, and saw that an officer followed by an orderly, had ridden up and was speaking to one of the loungers. The distance was too great for Stephen to hear what was said; suddenly, however, the new-comer swung himself from his saddle, and leaving his horse in charge of his orderly, came striding across the open woodland toward him. He was a pompous red-faced man, middle-aged, but vigorous and sturdy, and dressed in a handsome well-fitting uniform. Landray scrambled to his feet and saluted. His salute was graciously returned by the stranger, who said:
“I see you have a tin-cup, captain—” pausing, and bestowing an instant's scrutiny on the young man. “Would you mind letting me get a drink with it?”
For answer, Stephen stooped and filled his cup and handed it to him. .
“Rather warm for so early in the spring, general,” he said.
“Thanks—eh? Oh, yes, very warm indeed. The season's unusually well advanced.” He sat down on one of the exposed roots of the oak, and removing his hat carefully, polished his bald head with his handkerchief.
Stephen had seated himself on the fallen tree again. The stranger tossed his handkerchief into the crown of his hat, and fixed the latter on his head with a decided rake over one eye; then he looked across at Stephen and smiled, showing a row of white even teeth.
“Well, young man,” he observed briskly, and with an air of pleasant patronage, “I reckon you're beginning to think of the home folks, and I reckon the home folks are beginning to think of you; but maybe there's some one else you're thinking of hardest of all! I guess she'll be glad enough to see you back, eh?”
“That was all settled when I got my first furlough,” said Stephen laughing, “and that was over three years ago.”