Thank God there wasn't any multitude or an insane trainer here to order him about. "They've stopped again," the lieutenant sobbed. "Some of them are coming back." That sort of thing did spread like a pestilence, but there was nothing George could do about it. He had done his job. Good job, too. Soft billet now. Decency. Sylvia. No Green. No multitude---- "You make a touchdown!" And he became aware at last of the multitude--raving higher officers in comfortable places; countless victims of invasion, waiting patiently to go home; myriads in the cities, intoxicated with enthusiasm and wine, tumbling happily from military play to patriotic bazaar; but most eloquent of all in that innumerable company were the silent and cold brown figures lying about him in the underbrush. His brain, a little delirious, was filled with the roaring from the stands. The crowd was commanding him to get ahead somehow, to wipe out those deadly nests, to let the regiment, the army, tired nations, sweep on to peace and the end of an unbelievable madness. Once more he glanced through blurred eyes at his clothing and saw livery, and this time he had put it on of his own free will. He seemed to hear Squibs: "World lives by service." "I'm in the service," he thought. "Got to serve." It impressed him as quite pitiful that now he would never know just why. "Where you going?" he demanded of the stretcher bearers who had begun to carry him back. They tried to explain, hurrying a little. He threatened them with his revolver. "Turn around. Let's go--with the battalion." The lieutenant saw, the men saw, these frightened figures running with loping steps, carrying a stretcher which they jerked and twitched so that the figure lying on it with arm raised, holding a revolver, suffered agonies and struggled not to be flung to the ground. And the lieutenant and the men sprang to their feet, ran forward, shouted: "Follow the Major!" The German gunners, caught by surprise, hesitated, had trouble, therefore, shortening their ranges; and as panic spreads so does the sudden spirit of victory. "Same side of the window!" George grumbled as the bearers set him down behind the captured guns. "Just the same," he rambled, "fine fellows. Who said they weren't fine fellows?" He wanted to argue it angrily with a wounded German propped against a shattered tree, but the lieutenant interrupted him, bringing up a medical orderly, asking him if he had any instructions. George answered very pleasantly: "Not past me, Mr. Planter! Rank and file myself!" The lieutenant glanced significantly at the medical orderly. He looked sharply at George's hair and suddenly pointed. "They nicked him in the head, too." The orderly knelt and examined the place the lieutenant had indicated. "Oh, no, sir. That's quite an old scar." XII "Lost a leg or two?" Allen asked. "Not yet. Don't think I shall. Planter's not so lucky, but he'll get home sooner."