“Come on,” he said excitedly. “We’re foot-loose! Come on, my little angel brother, and play tag with these children!... ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers!’”
Never a wild rose of boyhood smelled half so sweet to Finacune as the ancient soil of Asia that moment, but he was whipped forward by certain emotions, to say nothing of Feeney and the avalanche of Japanese. They reached the edge of the grain and met the first gust of Orloff’s rifle steel. Down they went for the volleys, and that moment perceived a most amazing trick of a shell. A little knot of ten Japanese were running forward just before them when there was a sudden whistling shriek. The ten were lost for a second in a chariot of fire. When it cleared only one Japanese remained standing.
“That Russian gunner bowled a pretty spare,” grimly observed Feeney. “Come, get up, lad. The volleys are over.”
“Not this Finacune. I’m not short-sighted. I’m going to hold fast to this sweet piece of mainland just now. Besides——”
The little man burst into a nervous laugh and glanced at his foot. Then he stiffened into a sitting posture. Feeney looked him over. His hat was gone, scalp bleeding, his shirt-sleeve burst open as if it had been wet brown paper, and the sole of his left shoe torn away clean.
“Queer about that shrapnel,” he mumbled. “I’m interested in shrapnel anyway. I haven’t got any more toe-nails on that foot than a bee.”
Meanwhile, Kuroki was crushing the Orloff member with a force destined to wreck the whole Russian nervous-system. Out of the grain he poured torrents of infantry which smote the Russian column in a score of places at once.
“Did you ever put your ear to the ground during a battle, Feeney?” the other asked wistfully. “It sounds aw’fly funny—funnier than sea-shells. Let’s try.”
Feeney did not answer. He was watching the disorder which swept over the Russian lines. It had changed into a deluge tossing back toward the Collieries. There was a fury even in the clouds of powder smoke that seemingly had nothing to do with the winds. They darted, stretched, and tore apart from the whipped-line with some devilish volition of their own.
“There’ll be excitement presently,” the veteran remarked.