“What’s your name, ’bo? Where’ve you come from—now?”
“Forge is my name—Nat Forge. I’ve just come through from—from—Moscow.”
Crack! One of the briars had fallen to the floor and the hard-rubber stem had broken in two pieces.
“Forge? Nat Forge? God in heaven! Are you—the fellow—that started in toward Moscow with Dick Wiley a year ago? Where’s Wiley?”
“Dead,” responded Nat simply. “They shot him. Let me have that cigarette.”
They got him his cigarette. They got him many cigarettes. They rolled them for him as fast as he could smoke them, meeting each other’s eyes blankly. The fellow from Scranton dug around in his boxes and cartons for food. The fire was poked in thick silence. A battered pot was set thereon. Coffee was sifted in from a scoop of open fingers down in a bag.
They finally set food before him. They had sense enough not to prod the famished, emaciated man with damfool questions until he had partially recovered his strength.
“War? Gad, boys—I’ve seen enough war! You guys at this end of the country don’t know anything about it. This is the first square meal I’ve eaten in seven months. I mean it. Seven months. Since last February when we left Omsk, going east.”
It was pathetic, the way he ate that food. A square meal!
“You been in Moscow—ever since?”