Down among men

by Will Levington Comfort

Fallows had said it first. Anyone should have seen the ruin of this advance, unless the end of the millet were reached before the beginning of battle. They had to recall with effort at last, that there was an outer world of cities and seas and plains—anything but this hollow country of silence and fatness.

If you have ever jumped at the sudden drumming of a pneumatic hammer, as it rivets a bolt against the steel, you have a suggestion of the nervous shock from that first far machine-gun of Kuroki’s—just a suggestion, because Lowenkampf’s soldiers at the moment were suffocating in kao liang.... In such a strange and expensive way, they cut the crops that day.

Morning trod on the tail of the battalion ahead. It had stopped; he had not. The soldier in front whom he bumped turned slowly around and looked into his face. The wide, glassy blue eyes then turned to Fallows, and after resting a curious interval, finally found Luban.

The face was broad and white as lard. Whatever else was in it, there was no denying the fear, the hate, the cunning—all of a rudimentary kind. Luban was held by the man’s gaze. The fright in both hearts sparked in contact. The stupid face of the soldier suddenly reflected the terror of the officer. And this was the result: The wide-staring suddenly altered to a squint; the vacant, helpless staring of a bewildered child turned into the bright activity of a trapped rodent.

Luban had failed in his great instant. His jaw was loose-hinged, his mouth leaked saliva.

Now Morning and Fallows saw other faces—twenty faces in the grain, faces searching for the nearest officer. Their eyes roved to Luban; necks craned among the fox-tails. There was a slow giving of the line, and bumping contacts from ahead like a string of cars.... Morning recalled the look of Luban, as he had helped him down from the sorrel. He had helped then; he hated now. Fallows was better. He plumped the boy on the shoulder and said laughingly:

“Talk to ’em. Get ’em in hand—quick, Luban—or they’ll be off!”

It was all in ten seconds. The nearest soldiers had seen Luban fail. Other platoons, doubtless many, formed in similar tableaux to the same end. A second machine-gun took up the story. It was far-off, and slightly to the left of the Russian line of advance. The incomprehensible energy of the thing weakened the Russian column, although it drew no blood.

A roar ahead from an unseen battalion-officer—the Russian Forward. Luban tried to repeat it, but pitifully. A great beast rising from the ooze and settling back against the voice—such was the answer.

The Thought formed. It was the thought of the day. None was too stupid to catch the spirit of it. Certain it was, and pervading as the grain. Indeed, it was conceived of kao liang. The drum of the machine-gun, like a file in a tooth, was but its quickener. It flourished under the ghostly grays and whites of the sky. In the forward battalions the Thought already clothed itself in action: