For the first time since they had left home on the wild journey the childish smile left the boy’s face. His war picnic had ended in grim tragedy after all. He couldn’t believe it at first and the tears came in spite of his struggle to hold them back. In vain he shook his mother. She lay flat on her back now, her chalk-white face upturned in the sun. The boy was still crying when he felt the nudge of another arm against his. He lifted his tear-stained face and saw Sausage’s smoke-begrimmed cheeks and the look of dumb anguish in his eyes. “What’s the matter?” the boy sobbed. “My mamma’s killed”--was the low answer. The swarthy face of the little Italian pressed close to the fair German, and their arms stole round each other’s neck. Angela waking from her faint found them thus and gathered them into her arms. She was still soothing their fears when Tommaso [Illustration: “Tommaso staggered to the breastworks and stood one man against an army”] crawling on hands and knees in mortal terror from the battlefield, suddenly came upon them. In her surprise and joy over his protection Angela failed to note at first the meaning of his sudden appearance. “O my Tommaso!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms. He held her close for a moment and whispered excitedly: “I come to take you home, my Angela. You will be killed--you must not be here--” It was not until he had spoken that the wife caught the note of cowardly terror in his voice. Her arms slipped slowly from his neck. He hurried to repeat his warning: “You must go quick, my Angela!” The wife searched his soul and he turned away. She put her hand on his shoulder and her own eyes filled with tears. “Come--we must hurry”--Tommaso urged, seizing his gun and starting to rise. Angela held his hand firmly and pointed to the smoke-covered field below. “No--no--my man. Your place is there to fight for our bambino and his country--you just forgot for a little while. I know--I understand. I felt my heart melt and my poor knees go down--you go now and fight for us!” The man trembled and could not meet her eye. A shell exploded near, hurling the dust and gravel in advance clear above them. A piece of iron buried itself in the earth but three feet away. Angela cried in terror. The man suddenly stiffened, looked into the face of his boy, rose, seized his rifle, kissed his wife and rushed down the red lane of death to the front. Angela watched him with pride and terror. He was still in plain view in the little valley below when he met the ragged lines of our retreating men. The color-bearer fell. Tommaso seized the flag and called the men to rally. Through a hell of bursting shrapnel and machine-gun fire he turned the tide of retreat into a charge--a charge that never faltered until the last man fell on the slippery slopes of blood below the trenches of the enemy.