“Of course you are aware—of the remark he made this morning in the field headquarters? I saw how gallantly you tried to cover it. It was that remark, by the way, which nearly cost the life of our General. The hospital steward, took up the action as you know—”
“Dabnitz, I was shocked as you. Peter was beside himself. He had come in from the field—the actuality of it. He forgot where he was. The unparalleled energy of the General to win the day, you know—and Peter had just come in from the hollows where the men lay—”
“My dear Boylan, I'm sorry—”
For the first time, Big Belt felt the iron personality of the other. There was something commercial in the manner of the last, a kind of ushering out one who would not do. There are men who remain as aloof as the peaks of Phyrges, though their words and intonations come down running softly out of a smile. Boylan looked away, and then, with an inner groan, turned back.
“I tell you it is a mistake. The boy is as sound as—”
He couldn't finish. There were exceptions to everything he thought of. “I want to see him,” he added.
“I'll try to manage that for you, a little later.”
* * *
It was darkening. In the front room of the house, Kohlvihr sat bung-eyed by a telegraph instrument. The further strategy from Judenbach was still in the dark to Boylan. He wished the heavens would fall. As never before, he had the sense that he had pinned his life and faith to matters of no account; not that Peter Mowbray belonged to these matters, but that he, too, was meshed in them.... A shot from somewhere below in the town. Boylan shivered. There was shooting from time to time for various butchering reasons, but this particular shot was all Big Belt needed to finish the picture.
“Why, they'll shoot the lad,” he muttered.