The wind was blowing directly in the faces of our men for the first time since the landing had been made. They wondered if the wild stories we had heard of the use of poisonous gases and liquid fire in the great war were true. We had begun to scout these tales as press work of the various governments. The day was destined to bring a rude awakening. CHAPTER XXXI The first day’s battle brought to many a raw recruit the sharp need of military training. Many a man who had never consciously known the meaning of fear waked to find his knees trembling and hung his head in shame at the revelation. Tommaso had led his squad into the trenches before his bitter hour of self-revelation came. He had caught a glimpse of his wife and boy in a group of panic-stricken refugees and the sight had taken the last ounce of courage out of him. He was going to be killed. He knew it now with awful certainty. What would become of his loved ones? All night in the trenches he brooded over it. When the sun rose he was only waiting for a chance to run in the excitement of battle. He swore he would not leave his wife and child to starve! Angela carrying the poor little fear-stricken monkey, with the boy tightly gripping his dog Sausage, trying to save his kitten and his mother lugging a huge bundle had penetrated the American lines and found Vassar the day of the opening fight. The leader had hustled them from the field and they had taken refuge in a cabin behind the trenches. With the first gray dawn, the aeroplanes began to drop shells from the sky. An aerial bomb exploded within twenty feet of the cabin. Angela leaped to the door, gathered her boy and pets and shouted to her terror-stricken neighbor. “Come--quick! we will be torn to pieces--we must run--” In dumb panic, Mrs. Schultz gathered her own boy convulsively in her arms and refused to stir. Angela sprang through the door and hurried across the hills. The others crouched in the corner of the cabin and waited. A black ball again shot downward, crashed through the roof of the cabin, exploded and sent the frail structure leaping into the heavens. The airmen far up in the sky saw the column of flame and smoke and débris: “Good--we got ’em that crack!” the driver shouted above the whirr of his motor. By one of the strange miracles of war Sausage crawled over the dead body of his mother still clinging to the kitten and found his way into the woods without a scratch. Angela was just staggering to the crest of the ridge when the shell exploded and hurled the cabin into space. A sickening wave of horror swept her soul and she suddenly sank in a heap. In vain poor Sam the monk tried to rouse her. His deep curious monkey eyes swept the smoke-wreathed heavens in terror as again and again he stroked the white still face of his fallen mistress.