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Grierson seemed to be afraid of Nolan’s agitation, and so he slipped a hand under the prostrate man, and presently withdrew it covered with blood.”Yes,” he said, hiding his hand carefully from Nolan’s eyes, “you were right, Jimmie.”

“Of course I was,” said Nolan, contentedly closing his eyes.”This hillside holds water like a swamp.”After a moment he said: “Guess I ought to know. I’m flat here on it, and you fellers are standing up.”

He did not know he was dying. He thought he was holding an argument on the condition of the turf.

VI

“Cover his face,” said Grierson in a low and husky voice, afterward.

“What’ll I cover it with?” said Watkins.

They looked at themselves. They stood in their shirts, trousers, leggings, shoes; they had nothing.

“Oh,” said Grierson, “here’s his hat.”He brought it and laid it on the face of the dead man. They stood for a time. It was apparent that they thought it essential and decent to say or do something. Finally Watkins said in a broken voice, “Aw, it’s a damn shame.”

They moved slowly off toward the firing line.

In the blue gloom of evening, in one of the fever tents, the two rows of still figures became hideous, charnel. The languid movement of a hand was surrounded with spectral mystery, and the occasional painful twisting of a body under a blanket was terrifying, as if dead men were moving in their graves under the sod. A heavy odor of sickness and medicine hung in the air.

“What regiment are you in?” said a feeble voice.

“Twenty-ninth infantry,” answered another voice.

“Twenty-ninth!Why, the man on the other side of me is in the Twenty-ninth.”

“He is? … Hey there, partner, are you in the Twenty-ninth?”

A third voice merely answered wearily: “Martin, of C Company.”

“What?Jack, is that you?”

“It’s a part of me…. Who are you?”

“Grierson, you fat-head. I thought you were wounded.”

There was the noise of a man gulping a great drink of water, and at its conclusion Martin said, “I am.”

“Well, what you doin’ in the fever place, then?”

Martin replied with drowsy impatience.”Got the fever, too.”

“Gee!” said Grierson.

Thereafter there was silence in the fever tent save for the noise made by a man over in a corner, a kind of man always found in an American crowd, a heroic, implacable comedian and patriot, of a humor that has bitterness and ferocity and love in it, and he was wringing from the situation a grim meaning by singing the Star-Spangled Banner with all the ardor which could be procured from his fever-stricken body.

“Billie,” called Martin, in a low voice, “where’s Jimmie Nolan?”

“He’s dead,” said Grierson.

A tangle of raw gold light shone on a side of the tent. Somewhere in the valley an engine’s bell was ringing, and it sounded of peace and home as if it hung on a cow’s neck.

“An’ where’s Ike Watkins?”

“Well, he ain’t dead, but he got shot through the lungs. They say he ain’t got much show.”

Through the clouded odors of sickness and medicine rang the dauntless voice of the man in the corner.