The Fighting Starkleys; or, The Test of Courage

CHAPTER VI
DAVE HAMMER GETS HIS COMMISSION

Capt. Starkley-Davenport had power. Warbroken and propped between his crutch and stick, still he was powerful. A spirit big enough to animate three strong men glowed in his weak body, and he went after the medical officers, nursing sisters and V. A. D.'s of that hospital like a lieutenant general looking for trouble. He saw that Peter received every attention, and then that every other man in the hospital received the same—and yet he was as polite as your maiden aunt. Several medical officers, including a colonel, jumped on him—figuratively speaking—only to jump back again as if they had landed on spikes.

As soon as he regarded Peter as fit to be moved he took him to his own house. There the queer servants waited on Peter day and night in order of seniority. They addressed him as "Sergt. Peter, sir."

Over in Flanders things had bumped and smashed along much as usual since Christmas morning. Mr. Scammell had read his promotion in orders and the London Gazette, had put up his third star and had gone to brigade as staff captain, Intelligence; and David Hammer, with the acting rank of sergeant major, carried on in command of the battalion scouts. Hiram Sill had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his work on Christmas morning and the two chevrons of a corporal for his work in general. A proud man was Corp. Sill, with that ribbon on his chest.

The changes and chances of war had also touched Dick Starkley and Frank Sacobie. Lieut. Smith had persuaded Dick to leave the scouts and become his platoon sergeant; Sacobie was made an acting sergeant—and the night of that very day, while he was displaying his new chevrons in No Man's Land, he received a wound in the neck that put him out of the line for two weeks.

Henry Starkley—a captain now—managed to visit the battalion about twice a month. It was in the fire trench that he found Dick one mild and sunny morning of the last week of February. The brothers grinned affectionately and shook hands.

"Peter has sailed for home, wooden leg and all," said Henry. "I got a letter yesterday from Jack Davenport. Except for the sneaking Hun submarines, Peter is fairly safe now."

"I hope he makes the farm," said Dick. "He was homesick for it every minute and working out crop rotations on the backs of letters every night, in the line and out—except when he was fighting."

"There was something about you in Jack's letter. He says that offer still stands, and he seems as anxious as ever about it."

Dick sat down on the fire step, thrust out his muddy feet on the duck boards and gazed at them. He scratched himself meditatively in several places.

"I'd like fine to be an officer," he said at last. "Almost any one would. But I don't want to leave this bunch just now. Jack's crowd will want officers in six months just as much as now—maybe more; and if I'm lucky—still in fighting shape six months from now—I'll be better able to handle the job."

"I'll write that to Jack," said Henry. "He will understand—and your platoon commander will be pleased. He and the adjutant talked to me to-day as if something were coming to you—a D. C. M., I think. What happened to your first adjutant, Capt. Long, by the way?"

"Long's gone west," replied Dick briefly.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Shell get him?"

"No, sniper. He took one chance too many."

"I heard at the brigade on my way in that your friend, Dave Hammer, has his commission. I wonder if they have told him yet."

"Good! Let's go along and tell him. He is sleeping to-day."

They found Dave in his little dugout, with the mud of last night's expedition still caked on his person from heel to head. His blankets were cast aside, and he lay flat on his back and snored. His snores had evidently driven the proprietors of the other bunks out of that confined place, for he was alone. His muddy hands clasped and unclasped. He ceased his snoring suddenly and gabbled something very quickly and thickly in which only the word "wire" was recognizable. Then he jerked up one leg almost to his chin and shot it straight again with terrific force.

"He is fighting in his dreams, just the way my old dog Snap used to," said Dick. "We may as well wake him up, for he isn't resting."

"Go to it—and welcome," said Henry. "It's an infantry job."

Dick stooped and cried, "Hello, Dave!" but the sleeper only twitched an arm. "Wake up!" roared Dick. "Wake up and go to sleep right!" The sleeper closed his mouth for a second but did not open his eyes. He groaned, muttered something about too much light and began to snore again. Dick put a hand on his shoulder—and in the same breath of time he was gripped at wrist and throat with fingers like iron. Grasping the hand at his throat, Dick pulled a couple of fingers clear. Then the sleeper closed his mouth again and opened his eyes wide.

"Oh, it's you, Dick!" he said. "Sorry. Must have been dreaming."

He sat up and shook hands with Henry. When he heard of his promotion he blushed and got out of his bunk.

"That's a bit of cheering news," he said "I'll have a wash on the strength of that, and something to eat. Wish we were out, and I'd give a little party. Wonder if I can raise a set of stars to wear to-night, just for luck."

Henry went away half an hour later, and Dick returned to the fire trench. Capt. Keen, the adjutant, came looking for Hammer, found him still at his toilet and congratulated him heartily on his promotion.

"Come along and feed with me, if you have had enough sleep," said the adjutant. "The colonel wants to see you. He had a talk with you yesterday, didn't he—about to-night's job?"

"Yes, sir; and it will be a fine job, if the weather is just right. Looks now as if it might be too clear, but we'll know by sundown. I was dreaming about it a while ago. We were in, and I had a big sentry by the neck when Dick Starkley woke me up. I had grabbed Dick."

"The colonel is right," said Capt. Keen. "You're working too hard, Hammer, and you're beginning to show it; your eyes look like the mischief. This fighting in your sleep is a bad sign."

"The whole army could do with a rest, for that matter," replied Hammer, "but who would go on with the work? What I am worrying about now is rank badges. I'd like to doll up a bit for to-night."

They went back to the sandbagged cellar under the broken farmhouse that served as headquarters for whatever battalion held that part of the line. On their way they had borrowed an old jacket with two stars on each sleeve from Lieut. Smith; and in that garment Dave Hammer appeared at the midday meal. The colonel, the medical officer, the padre and the quartermaster were there. They congratulated Dave on his promotion, and the colonel placed him at his right hand at the table on an upended biscuit box.

The fare consisted of roast beef and boiled potatoes, a serviceable apple pie and coffee. The conversation was of a general character until after the attack on the pie—an attack that was driven to complete success only by the padre, who prided himself on the muscular development of his jaws. The commanding officer, somewhat daunted in spirit by the pastry, looked closely at the lieutenant.

"You need a rest, Hammer," he said. "Keen, didn't I tell you yesterday that Hammer must take a rest? Doc, just slant an eye at this young officer and give me your opinion. Doesn't he look like all-get-out?"

"Looks like get-out-of-the-front-line to me, sir," said the medical officer. "A couple of weeks back would set him on his feet. You say the word, sir, and I'll send him back this very day."

"But the show!" exclaimed Hammer. "I must go out to-night, sir!"

"Hammer is the only officer with his party, sir," said Capt. Keen to the colonel. "As you know, sir, we held the organization down this time to only one officer with each of our four parties—because officers are not very plentiful with us just now."

"That's the trouble!" exclaimed the colonel. "They hem and haw and chew the rag over our recommendations for commissions and keep sending us green officers from England who don't know the fine points of the game. So here we are forced to let Hammer go out to-night, when he should be in his blankets. But back he goes to-morrow!"

Dave had intended to sleep that afternoon, but the excitement caused by the news of his promotion made it impossible. He who had never missed a minute's slumber through fear of death was set fluttering at heart and nerves by the two worsted "pips" on each sleeve of his borrowed jacket. The coat was borrowed—but the right to wear the stars was his, his very own, earned in Flanders. He toured the trenches—fire, communication and support—feeling that his stars were as big as pie plates.

Sentries, whose bayonet-tipped rifles leaned against the parapet, saluted and then grasped his hand. Subalterns and captains hailed him as a brother; and so did sergeants, with a "sir" or two thrown in. As Dave passed on his embarrassed but triumphant way down the trench his heart pounded as no peril of war had ever set it pounding. No emperor had ever known greater ache and uplift of glory than this grand conflagration in the heart and brain of Lieut. David Hammer, Canadian Infantry.

He visited his scouts; and they seemed as pleased at his "pips" as if each one of them had got leave to London. Even Sergt. Frank Sacobie's dark and calm visage showed flickers of emotion. Corp. Hiram Sill, D. C. M., who visioned everything in a large and glowing style, saw in his mind's eye the King in Buckingham Palace agreeing with some mighty general, all red and gold and ribbons, that this heroic and deserving young man should certainly be granted a commission for the fine work he was doing with the distinguished scouts of that very fine regiment.

"I haven't a doubt that was the way of it," said Old Psychology. "People with jobs like that are trained from infancy to grasp details; and I bet King George has the name of everyone of us on the tip of his tongue. You can bet your hat he isn't one to give away Distinguished Conduct Medals without knowing what he is about."

Hiram joined in the laughter that followed his inspiring statements; not that he thought he had said anything to laugh at, but merely to be sociable.

That "show" was to be a big one—a brigade affair with artillery coöperation. The battalion on the right was to send out two parties, one to bomb the opposite trench and the other to capture and demolish a hostile sap head—and together to raise Old Ned in general and so hold as much of the enemy's attention as possible from the main event. The battalion on the left was to put on an exhibition of rifle, machine-gun and trench-mortar fire that would assuredly keep the garrison opposite occupied with its own affairs.

As for the artillery, it had already worked through two thirds of its elaborate programme. Four nights ago it had put on a shoot at two points in the hostile wire and front line, three hundred yards apart, short but hot. Then it had lifted to the support and reserve trenches. Three nights ago it had done much the same things, but not at the same hours, and on a wider frontage. The enemy, sure of being raided, had turned on his lights and his machine guns on both occasions—on nothing. He could do nothing then toward repairing his wire, for after our guns had churned up his entanglements our machine guns played upon the scene and kept him behind his parapet. The batteries had been quiet two nights ago, and Fritz, expecting a raid in force, had lost his nerve entirely. Our eighteen pounders had lashed him at noon the next day, and again at sunset and again at eleven o'clock; and so he had sat up all night again with his nerves.

At four o'clock in the afternoon of this day of Dave Hammer's promotion the batteries went at it again, smashing wire and parapets with field guns and shooting up registered targets farther back with heavier metal. When hostile batteries retaliated, we did counter-battery work with such energy and skill that we soon had the last word in the argument. The deeds of the gunners put the infantry in high spirits.

The afternoon grew misty; shortly after five o'clock there was a shower. At half past seven scouts went out from the 26th and the battalion on the right and, returning, reported that the wire was nicely ripped and chewed. At eight the battalion on the left put on a formidable trench-mortar shoot, which quite upset the nerve-torn enemy. Then all was at rest on that particular piece of the western front—except for the German illumination—until half past twelve.

Half past twelve was Zero Hour. A misty rain was seeping down from a slate-gray sky. Six lieutenants in the fire trench of two battalions took their eyes from the dials of their wrist watches, said "time" to their sergeants and went over, with their men at their heels and elbows. The two larger parties from our battalion were to get into the opposite trench side by side, there separate one to the left and one to the right, do what they could in seven minutes or until recalled, then get out and run for home with their casualties—if any. They were to pass their prisoners out as they collared them. The smaller parties were made up of riflemen, stretcher bearers and escorts for the prisoners. The raiding parties were commanded by Mr. Hammer, with Sergt. Sacobie second in command, and Mr. Smith, with Sergt. Richard Starkley second in command. Corp. Hiram Sill was in Hammer's crowd.

Captain Scammell from brigade, the colonel and the adjutant stood in the trench at the point of exit. Suddenly they heard the dry, smashing reports of grenades through the chatter of machine-gun fire on the left. The bombs went fast and furious, punctuated by the crack of rifles and bursts of pistol fire. S. O. S. rockets went up from the German positions; and, as if in answer to those signals, our batteries laid a heavy barrage on and just in rear of the enemy's support trenches. The colonel flashed a light on his wrist.

"They have been in four minutes," he said.

At that moment a muddy figure with blackened face and hands and a slung rifle on his back scrambled into the trench, turned and pulled something over the parapet that sprawled at the colonel's feet.

"Here's one of them, sir; and there's more coming," said the man of mud. "Ah! Here's another. Boost him over, you fellers."

"Sure it was," said the Canadian who had arrived first. "Don't I know? I got a chunk of it in my leg." He stooped and fumbled at the calf of his right leg. The adjutant turned a light on him, and the man extended his hand, dripping with blood.

"You beat it for the M. O., my lad," said the colonel.

Five more prisoners came in under a guard of two; and then six more of the raiders arrived, two of whom were carrying Lieut. Smith. The lieutenant's head was bandaged roughly, and the dressing was already soaked with blood.

"We did them in, sir," he said thickly to the colonel. "Caught them in bunches—and bombed three dugouts."

He was carried away, still muttering of the fight. By that time the majority of the other parties were in. Several of the men were wounded—and they had brought their dead with them, three in number. The Germans had turned their trench mortars on their own front line from their support trenches.

"They're not all in yet," said Capt. Keen. "Hammer isn't in."

Just then Dick Starkley slid into the trench.

"That you, Dick? Did you see Mr. Hammer? Or Frank Sacobie? Or Bruce McDonald?"

"I have McDonald—but some one's got to help me lift him over," said Dick breathlessly. "Heavy as a horse—and hit pretty bad!"

Two men immediately slipped over the top and hoisted big McDonald into the trench. Hiram Sill put a hand on Dick's shoulder.

"Dave Hammer and Sacobie," he whispered, "are still out. Hadn't we better—"

"Right," said Dick. "Come on out." He turned to Capt. Scammell. "Please don't let the guns shorten for a minute or two, sir; Sill and I have to go out again."

Without waiting for an answer they whipped over the sandbags. Hiram was back in two minutes. He turned on the fire step and received something that Dick and Frank Sacobie lifted over to him. It was Dave Hammer, unconscious and breathing hoarsely, with his eyes shut, his borrowed tunic drenched with mud and blood and one of his bestarred sleeves shot away. Capt. Scammell swayed against the colonel and, for a second, put his hand to his eyes.

"Steady, lad, steady," said the colonel in a queer, cracked voice. "Keen, tell the guns to drop on their front line with all they've got—and then some."

To the whining and screeching of our shells driving low overhead and the tumultuous chorus of their exploding, passed the undismayed soul of Lieut. David Hammer of the Canadian Infantry.

Heedless of the coming and going of the shells and the quaking of the parapet, Sacobie sat on the fire step with his hands between his knees and stared fixedly at nothing; but Hiram Sill and young Dick Starkley wept without thought of concealment, and their tears washed white furrows down their blackened faces.

CHAPTER VII
PETER WRITES A LETTER

He went to the town of Stanley first and left his baggage in the freight shed at the siding. With his haversack on his shoulder and a stout stick in his right hand, he set out along the white and slippery road. Before he got to the bridge a two-horse sled overtook him, and the driver, an elderly man whom he did not know, invited him to climb on. Peter accepted the invitation with all the agility at his command.

"You step a mite lame on your right leg," said the driver.

"That's so," replied Peter, smiling.

"Been soldierin', hey? See any fight-in'?"

"Yes, I've been in Flanders."

"That so? I've got a boy in the war. Smart boy, too. They give him a job right in England. He wears spurs to his boots, he does; and it ain't everyone kin wear them spurs, he writes me. This here war ain't all in Flanders. We had some shootin' round here about a year back out Pike's Settlement way. A young feller in soldier uniform was drivin' along, and some one shot at him from the woods. That's what he said, but my boy—that was afore he went to the war—says like enough he shot himself so's to git out of goin'. He's a smart lad—that's why they give him a job in England. Army Service Corps, he is—so I reckon maybe he's right about that feller shootin' himself."

"What's his name?" asked Peter quietly.

"Starkley. Peter Starkley from Beaver Dam."

"I'm asking the name of that smart son of yours."

"Gus Todder's his name—Gus Todder, junior. Maybe you know him," was the reply.

"No, but I've got his number," said Peter. "You tell him so in the next letter you write him. Tell him that Sergt. Peter Starkley of the 26th Canadian Infantry Battalion will be glad to see him when he comes home; tell him not to cut himself on those spurs of his in the meantime; and you'd better advise him to warn his father not to shoot his mouth off in future to military men about things he is ignorant of. Here's where I get off. Thanks for the lift."

Peter left the sled, but turned at the other's voice and stood looking back at him.

"I didn't get the hang of all that you was sayin'," said Todder. He was plainly disconcerted.

"Never mind; your son will catch the drift of it," replied Peter. "I am too happy about getting home to be fussy about little things, but don't chat quite so freely with every returned infantryman you see about your son's smartness. You call it smartness—but the fellows up where I left my right leg have another name for it."

Opening the white gate, he went up the deep and narrow path between snow banks to the white house. At the top of the short flight of steps that led to the winter porch that inclosed the front door, he looked over his shoulder and saw Todder still staring at him. Peter grinned and waved his hand, then opened the door of the porch.

As he closed the door behind him, the house door opened wide before him. Vivia stood on the threshold. She stared at him with her eyes very round and her lips parted, but she did not move or speak. She held her slim hands clasped before her—clasped so tight that the knuckles were colorless. Her small face, which had been as pale as her clasped hands at the first glimpse, turned suddenly as red as a rose; and her eyes, which had been very bright even to their wonderful depths, were dimmed suddenly with a shimmer of tears. And for a long time—for ten full seconds, it may have been—Peter also stood motionless and stared. The heavy stick slipped from his fingers and fell with a clatter on the floor of the porch. He stepped forward then and enfolded her in his khaki-clad arms, safe and sure against the big brass buttons of his greatcoat; and just then the door of the porch opened, and Mr. Todder said:

"I ain't got the hang of yer remarks yet, young feller."

"Chase yourself away home," replied Peter, without turning his head; and there was something in the tone of his voice that caused Mr. Todder to withdraw his head from the porch and to retire, muttering, to his sled. Vivia had not paid the slightest heed to the interruption. She drew Peter into the hall.

"I was afraid," she whispered. "I didn't know how much they had hurt you, Peter—but I wasn't afraid of that. I should love you just as much if they had crippled you,—I am so selfish in my love, Peter,—but I was afraid, at first, that I might see a change in your eyes."

"There couldn't be a change in my eyes when I look at you, unless I were blind," said Peter. "Even if I were blind, I guess I could see you. But I am the same as I was, inside and out—all except a bit of a patent leg."

Just then Mrs. Hammond made her discreet appearance, expressed her joy and surprise at the sight of Peter and ventured a motherly kiss. Mr. Hammond came in from the store half an hour later and welcomed Peter cordially. The man had lost weight, and his face was grim. He got Peter to himself for a few minutes just before supper.

"Jim is still on the other side the border somewhere, I guess," he said, "though I haven't heard from him for months. I've kept the shooting business quiet, Peter—and even about his deserting; but I had to tell his mother and Vivia that he wasn't any good as a soldier and had gone away. I made up some kind of story about it. Other people think he's in France, I guess—even your folks at Beaver Dam. But what do you hear of Pat? He isn't much of a hand at writing letters, but was well when he wrote last to his mother."

"I didn't see him over there, but Henry ran across him and said that he is doing fine work. He's got his third pip and is attached to headquarters of one of the brigades of the First Division as a learner. He has been wounded once, I believe, but very slightly."

"And I used to think that Pat wasn't much good—too easy-going and loose-footed," said Mr. Hammond bitterly. "My idea of a man was a storekeeper. Well, I think of him now, and I stick out my chest—and then I remember Jim, and my chest caves in again."

They were interrupted then by Vivia; so nothing more was said about the deserter. After supper Peter had to prove to the family that he could dance on his new leg.

"I'll hitch the grays to the pung," said Mr. Hammond when about eight o'clock Peter got ready to go. "It's a fine night, and the roads are a marvel. I'll drive you home."

"And I am going too," said Vivia.

Dry maple sticks burned on the hearth of the big Franklin stove in the sitting room of Beaver Dam. Flora sat at the big table writing a letter to Dick; John Starkley and Jim Hammond played checkers; and Mrs. Starkley nodded in a chair by the fire. Emma had gone to bed. John Starkley had his hand raised and hovering for a master move when a jangle of bells burst suddenly upon their ears. Flora darted to a window, and the farmer hastened to the front door; but by the time Flora had drawn back the curtains and her father had opened the door Jim Hammond was upstairs and in his room.

Jim did not light the candle that stood on the window sill at the head of his bed. He closed the door behind him. The blind was up; starshine from the world of white and purple and silver without sifted faintly into the little room. He stood for a minute in the middle of the floor, listening to the broken and muffled sounds of talk and laughter from the lower hall. He heard a trill of Vivia's laughter. What had brought Vivia out again, he wondered. News of Peter, beyond a doubt; and good news, to judge by the sounds. He seated himself cautiously on the edge of the bed.

Now he heard his father's voice. Yes—and John Starkley was laughing. There was another man's voice, but he could hear only a low note of it now and then in the confused, happy babble of sound. A door shut—and then he could not hear anything. He wondered who the third man was and decided that he probably was some one from the village who had just arrived home and who had brought messages from Peter. Perhaps, he thought, Peter was even then on his way from England.

Jim sat there with the faint shine of the stars falling soft on the rag carpet at his feet and thought what wonderful people the Starkleys were. They had taken him in and treated him like one of the family—and like a white man. Now that Peter was coming home and would be able to help with the work, he would go away and show John Starkley that he had found his courage and his manhood. He had made his plans in a general way weeks before. He would go to another province and enlist in the artillery or in the infantry under an assumed name; if he "made good," or got killed, John Starkley would tell all the good he could of him to his family in Stanley. Already he felt lonely, a dreary chill of homesickness, at the thought of leaving Beaver Dam.

A door opened and closed downstairs, but Jim Hammond was too busy with his thoughts and high resolves to hear the faint sounds. He even did not hear the feet on the carpeted stairs—and a hand was on the latch of the door before he knew that some one was about to enter the room. He sat rigid and stared at the door.

The door opened and some one entered who bulked large and tall in the pale half gloom of the room. The visitor halted and turned his face toward the bed.

"Who's there?" he asked; and Jim could see the shoulders lower and advance a little and the whole figure become tense as if for attack.

"It's me, Peter!" whispered Jim sharply "Shut the door quick!"

"You! You, Jim Hammond!" said Peter in a voice of amazement and anger. "What the mischief are you doing here?" Without turning his face from the bed he shut the door behind him with his heel. "Light the candle and pull down the shade. Let me see you."

Jim got to his feet and reached for the shade, but Peter spoke before he touched it.

"No! The candle first!" exclaimed Peter, with an edge to his voice. "I don't trust you in the dark any more than I trust you in the woods."

Hammond struck a match and lit the candle, then drew down the shade and turned with his back to the window. His face was pale. "I didn't figure on your getting home so soon," he said in an unsteady voice. "I didn't intend to be here. I thought I'd be gone before you came."

"What are you doing here, anyway?" demanded Peter. "What's the game? Sitting in my room, on my bed, quite at home, by thunder! And your father thinks you are in the States. Does my father know you are here?"

Jim smiled faintly. "Yes, he knows—and all your folks know. I've been here since about the middle of October, working, and sleeping in this room every night. My people don't know where I am—but when I get to France you can tell them. Your father doesn't know that it was I who fired that shot—and when I found you hadn't told him that, or even that I was a deserter, I felt it was up to me to do my best for you while you were away. So I've worked hard and been happy here; and I'll be sorry to go away—but I must go now that you're home again. Don't tell my people I'm here, Peter."

"You have been living here ever since the middle of October, working here, and your own father and mother don't know where you are?"

"Your people are the only ones who know."

Peter eyed him in silence for a minute.

"Why did you shoot me, Jim?" he asked more gently.

"How do I know?" exclaimed Hammond. "I was drinking; I was just about mad with drink. I liked you well enough, Peter,—I didn't want to kill you,—but the devil was in me. It was drink made me act so bad in St. John; it was drink made me desert; it was drink that came near making a murderer of me. That's the truth, Peter—and now I wish you'd go downstairs, for I don't want my father or Vivia to find me here—or to know anything about me till I'm in France."

"Shall I find you here when I come back?" asked Peter.

"I'll come downstairs as soon as they go," said Hammond.

Peter was about to leave the room when he suddenly remembered the errand that had brought him away from the company downstairs. It was a photograph of himself taken at the age of five years. Vivia had heard of it and asked for it; and before either of his parents or Flora had been able to think of a way of stopping him he had started upstairs for it. Now he found it on the top of a shelf of old books and wiped off the dust on his sleeve.

"Vivia wants it," he said, smiling self-consciously.

He found Flora waiting at the head of the stairs for him.

"It's all right; I've had a talk with him," he whispered, and when he reached the sitting room he met the anxious glances of his parents with a smile and nod that set their immediate anxieties at rest.

It was past midnight when Vivia and her father drove away. Then Jim came downstairs, and Peter shook hands with him in the most natural way in the world.

"When we met in my bedroom we were both too astonished to shake hands," explained Peter.

"You must sleep in Dick's room now, Peter," said Mrs. Starkley.

"Only for one night," said Jim, trying to smile but making a poor job of it. "I'll be off to-morrow, now that Peter is home again—just as I planned all along, you know. I—it isn't the going back to the army I mind; it is—leaving you people."

He smiled more desperately than ever.

Mrs. Starkley and Flora did not dare trust their voices to reply. John Starkley laid a hand on Jim's shoulder and said, "Go when it suits you, Jim, and come back when it suits you—and we shall miss you when you are away, remember that."

The three men sat up for another hour, talking of Peter's experiences and Jim's plans. They went upstairs at last, but even then neither Peter nor Jim could sleep, for the one was restless with happiness and the other with the excitement of impending change. Peter would see Vivia on the morrow, and Jim would meet strange faces. Peter had returned to the security that he had fought and shed his blood for and to the life and people he loved; Jim's fighting was all before him, and behind him a disgrace to be outlived.

After a while Peter got up and went to Jim's room in his pyjamas; he sat on the edge of Jim's bed, and they talked of the fighting over in France.

"I've been thinking about my reënlistment," said Jim, "and I guess I'll take a chance on my own name. It's my name I want to make good."

"Sounds risky—but I don't believe it is as risky as it sounds," said Peter.

"Not if I go far enough away to enlist—to Halifax or Toronto. There must be lots of Hammonds in the army. I'll take the risk, anyway. It isn't likely I'll run across any of the old crowd. None of our old officers would be hard on me, I guess, if they found me fighting and doing my duty."

"Capt. Long is dead. A great many of the old crowd are dead, and others have been promoted out of the regiment. Remember Dave Hammer?"

"Yes. If I could ever be as good a soldier as Dave Hammer I think I'd forget—except sometimes in the middle of the night, maybe—what a mean, worthless fellow I have been."

"I'll tell you what, Jim," said Peter suddenly, "I'll write a letter for you to carry; and if any one spots you over there and is nasty about it, you go to any officer you know in the old battalion and tell the truth and show my letter. I guess that will clear your name, Jim, if you do your duty."

"You don't mean to put everything in the letter, do you?"

"Only what is known officially—that you went home from your regiment here in Canada on pass, started acting the fool and deserted. That is the charge against you, Jim—desertion. But it is the mildest sort of desertion, and reënlistment just about offsets it. The same thing done in France in the face of the enemy is punished—you know how."

"Yes, I know how it is punished," said Hammond. "You wouldn't worry about that if you knew as much about how I feel now as I do myself. Of course I've got to prove it before you'll believe it, Peter, but I'm not afraid to fight."

When Peter had gone back to his room, he sat down to write the letter that Jim Hammond was to carry in his pocket. It was a long letter, and Peter was a slow writer. He spared no pains in making every point of his argument perfectly clear. He staked the military reputation of the whole Starkley family on James Hammond's future behavior as a soldier. He sealed it with red wax and his great-grandfather's seal and addressed the envelope to "Any Officer of the 26th Can. Infty. Bn. or of any Unit of the Can. Army Corps of the B. E. F." When finally he had the letter done, it was morning.

CHAPTER VIII
THE 26TH "MOPS UP"

The war held and crushed and sweated on the western front. Every day found the Canadians in the grinding and perilous toil of it. In April, 1916, the Second Canadian Division held the ground about St. Eloi against terrific onslaughts. Then and there were fought those desperate actions known as the Battles of the Craters. Hiram Sill, D. C. M., now a sergeant, received a wound that put him out of action for nearly two months. Dick Starkley was buried twice, once beneath the lip of one of the craters as it returned to earth after a jump into the air, and again in his dugout. No bones were broken, but he had to rest for three days.

Other Canadian divisions moved into the Ypres salient in April—back to their first field of glory of the year before. That salient of terrible fame, advanced round the battered city of Ypres like a blunt spearhead driven into the enemy's positions, will live for centuries after its trenches are leveled. British soldiers have fallen in their tens of thousands in and beyond and on the flanks of that city of destruction. From three sides the German guns flailed it through four desperate years. Masses of German infantry surged up and broke against its torn edges, German gas drenched it, liquid fire scorched it, and mines blasted it. Now and again the edge of that salient was bent inward a little for a day or a week; but in those four years no German set foot in that city of heroic ruins except as a prisoner.

The 26th Battalion celebrated Dominion Day—July 1st—by raiding a convenient point of the German front line. The assault was made by a party of twenty-five "other ranks" commanded by two junior officers. It was supported by the fire of our heavy field guns and heavy and medium trench mortars.

Sergts. Frank Sacobie and Hiram Sill were of the party, but Dick Starkley was not. Dick could not be spared for it from his duties with his platoon, for he was in acting command during the enforced absence of Lieut. Smith, who was suffering at a base hospital from a combination of gas and fever. The men from New Brunswick were observed by the garrison of the threatened trench while they were still on the wrong side of the inner line of hostile wire, and a heavy but wild fire was opened on them with rifles and machine guns. But the raiders did not pause. They passed through the last entanglement, entered the trench, killed a number of the enemy and collected considerable material for identification. Their casualties were few, and no wound was of a serious nature. Hiram Sill was dizzy and bleeding freely, but cheerful. One small fragment of a bomb had cut open his right cheek, and another had nicked his left shoulder. Sacobie carried him home on his back.

It was a little affair, remarkable only as a new way of celebrating Dominion Day, and differed only in minor details from hundreds of other little bursts of aggressive activity on that front.

Later in the month a Distinguished Service Order, two Military Crosses, four Distinguished Conduct Medals and five Military Medals were awarded to the battalion in recognition of its work about St. Eloi. Dick Starkley and Frank Sacobie each drew a D. C. M. A few days after that Lieut. Smith returned from Blighty and took back the command of his platoon from Dick; and at the same time he informed Dick that he was earmarked for a commission.

The Canadians began their march from the Ypres salient to the Somme on September 1, 1916. They marched cheerfully, glad of a change and hoping for the best. The weather was fine, and the towns and villages through which they passed seemed to them pleasant places full of friendly people. They were going to fight on a new front; and, as became soldiers, it was their firm belief that any change would be for the better.

On the 8th of September, while on the march, Dick Starkley was gazetted a lieutenant of Canadian Infantry. Mr. Smith found his third star in the same gazette, and Dick took the platoon. Henry visited the battalion a few days later and presented to the new lieutenant an old uniform that would do very well until the London tailors were given a chance. Dick was a proud soldier that day; and an opportunity of showing his new dignity to the enemy soon occurred. That opportunity was the famous battle of Courcelette.

From one o'clock of the afternoon of September 14 until four o'clock the next morning our heavy guns and howitzers belabored with high explosive shells the fortified sugar refinery and its strong trenches and the village of Courcelette beyond. Then for an hour the big guns were silent. The battalions of the Fourth and Sixth Brigades waited in their jumping-off trenches before Pozières. The Fifth Brigade, of which the 26th Battalion was a unit, rested in reserve.

Dawn broke with a clear sky and promise of sunshine and a frosty tingle in the air. At six o'clock the eighteen-pounder guns of nine brigades of artillery, smashing into sudden activity, laid a dense barrage on the nearest rim of the German positions. Four minutes later the barrage lifted and jumped forward one hundred yards, and the infantry climbed out of their trenches and followed it into the first German trench. The fight was on in earnest, and in shell holes, in corners of trenches and against improvised barricades many great feats of arms were dared and achieved. A tank led the infantry against the strongly fortified ruins of the refinery and toppled down everything in its path.

Lieut. Dick Starkley and his friends gave ear all morning to the din of battle, wished themselves farther forward in the middle of it and wondered whether the brigades in front would leave anything for them to do on the morrow. Messages of success came back to them from time to time. By eight o'clock, after two hours of fighting, the Canadians had taken the formidable trenches, the sugar refinery, a fortified sunken road and hundreds of prisoners. The way was open to Courcelette.

"If they don't slow up—if they don't quit altogether this very minute—they'll be crowding right in to Courcelette and doing us out of a job!" complained Sergt. Hiram Sill. "That's our job, Courcelette is—our job for to-morrow. They've done what they set out to do, and if they go ahead now and try something they haven't planned for, well, they'll maybe bite off more than they can chew. The psychology of it will be all wrong; their minds aren't made up to that idea."

"I guess the idee ain't the hull thing," remarked a middle-aged corporal. "Many a good job has been done kind of unexpectedly in this war. I reckon this here psychology didn't have much to do with your D. C. M."

"That's where you're dead wrong, Henry," said Hiram. "I knew I'd get a D. C. M. all along, from the first minute I ever set foot in a trench. My mind and my spirit were all made up for it. I knew I'd get a D. C. M. just as sure as I know now that I'll get a bar to it—if I don't go west first."

Dick, who had joined the group, laughed and smote Hiram on the shoulder.

"You're dead right!" he exclaimed. "Old Psychology, you're a wonder of the age! Be careful what you make up your heart and soul and mind to next or you'll find yourself in command of the division."

"What do you mean, lieutenant?" asked Sill.

"You've been awarded the D. C. M. again, that's all!" cried Dick, shaking him violently by the hand. "You've got your bar, Old Psychology! Word of it just came through from the Brigade."

Sergt. Sill blushed and grew pale and blushed again.

"Say, boys, I'm a proud man," he said. "There are some things you can't get used to—and being decorated for distinguished conduct on the field of glory is one of them, I guess. If you'll excuse me, boys,—and you, lieutenant,—I'll just wander along that old trench a piece and think it over by myself."

The way was open to Courcelette. The battalions that had done the work in a few hours and that, despite a terrific fire from the enemy, had established themselves beyond their final objective, were anxious to continue about this business without pause and clean up the strongly garrisoned town. They had fought desperately in those few hours, however, and the enemy's fire had taken toll of them, and so they were told to sit tight in their new trenches; but the common sense of their assertion that Courcelette itself should be assaulted without loss of time, before the beaten and astounded enemy could recover, was admitted.

At half past three o'clock that afternoon the Fifth Brigade received its orders and instructions and immediately passed them on and elaborated them to the battalions concerned. By five o'clock the three battalions that were to make the attack were on their way across the open country, advancing in waves. German guns battered them but did not break their alignment. They reached our new trenches and, with the barrage of our own guns now moving before them, passed through and over the victorious survivors of the morning's battle.

The French Canadians and the Nova Scotians went first in two waves.

Dick Starkley and his platoon were on the right of the front line of the 26th, which was the third wave of attack. "Mopping up" was the battalion's particular job on this occasion.

"Mopping up," like most military terms, means considerably more than it suggests to the ear. The mops are rifles, bombs and bayonets; the things to be mopped are machine-gun posts still in active operation, bays and sections of trenches still occupied by aggressive Germans, mined cellars and garrisoned dugouts. Everything of a menacing nature that the assaulting waves have passed over or outflanked without demolishing must be dealt with by the "moppers-up."

The two lines of the 26th advanced at an easy walk; there was about five yards between man and man. Each man carried water and rations for forty-eight hours and five empty sandbags, over and above his arms and kit. The men kept their alignment all the way up to the edge of the village. Now and again they closed on the center or extended to right or left to fill a gap. Wounded men crawled into shell holes or were picked up and carried forward. Dead men lay sprawled beneath their equipment, with their rifles and bayonets out thrust toward Courcelette even in death. The "walking wounded" continued to go forward, some unconscious or unmindful of their injuries and others trying to bandage themselves as they walked.

Col. MacKenzie led them, and beside him walked a company commander. The two shouted to each other above the din of battle, and sometimes they turned and shouted back to their men. Other officers walked a few paces in front of their men.

A bursting shell threw Dick backward into a small crater that had been made earlier in the day and knocked the breath out of him for a few seconds. Frank Sacobie picked him up. The colonel gave the signal to double, and the right flank of the 26th broke from a walk into a slow and heavy jog. Sacobie jogged beside Dick.

"Just a year since we came into the line!" shouted Dick.

"We were pa'tridge shootin' two years ago to-day!" bawled Sacobie.

The colonel turned with his back to Courcelette and his face to his men and yelled at them to come on. "Speed up on the right!" he shouted. "The left is ahead. The 25th is in already. Shake a leg, boys. If they don't move quick enough in front, blow right through 'em."

At the near edge of the village a number of New Brunswickers, including their colonel, overtook and mingled with the second line of the 22d. Our barrage was lifted clear of Courcelette by this time and set like a spouting wall of fire and earth along the far side of it; but the shells of the enemy continued to pitch into it, heaving bricks and rafters and the soil of little gardens into the vibrating twilight. Machine guns streamed their fire upon the invaders from attics and cellars and sand-bagged windows. The bombs and rifles of the 22d smashed and cracked just ahead; and on the left, still farther ahead, crashes and bangs and shouts told all who could hear the whereabouts of Hilliam and his lads from Nova Scotia.

Dick Starkley saw a darting flicker of fire from the butt of a broken chimney beyond a cellar full of bricks and splintered timber. He shouted to his men, let his pistol swing from its lanyard and threw a bomb. Then, stooping low, he dashed at the jumble of ruins in the cellar. He saw his bomb burst beside the stump of chimney. The machine gun flickered again, and spat-spat-spat came quicker than thought. Other bombs smashed in front of him, to right and left of the chimney. He got his right foot entangled in what had once been a baby's crib.

There he was, staggering on the very summit of that low mound of rubbish, fairly in line with the aim of the machine gun. Something seized him by some part of his equipment and jerked him backward. He lit on his back and slid a yard, then beheld the face of Hiram Sill staring down at him.

"Hit?" asked Hiram.

"Don't think so. No."

"It's a wonder."

Five men from Dick's platoon joined them in the ruins. Together they threw seven grenades. The hidden gun ceased fire. Dick scrambled up and over the rubbish and around what was left of the shattered chimney that masked the machine-gun post. In the dim light he saw sprawled shapes and crouching shapes, and one stooped over the machine gun, working swiftly to clear it again for action. Dick pistoled the gunner. The three survivors of that crew put up their hands. Sergt. Sill disarmed them and told them to "beat it" back to the Canadian lines. Fifty yards on they found Sacobie and two privates counting prisoners at the mouth of a dugout.

"Twenty-nine without a scratch," said Sacobie.

"Find stretchers for them and send them back with our wounded, under escort," said Dick. "Put a corporal in charge. Is there a corporal here?"

"I'm here, sir."

"You, Judd? Take them back with as many of our wounded as they can carry. Two men with you should be escort enough. Hand over the wounded and fetch up any grenades and ammunition you can get hold of."

Capt. Smith staggered up to Dick.

"We are through and out the other side!" he gasped. "Get as many of our fellows as you can collect quick to stiffen this flank. Dig in beyond the houses—in line with the 25th. The colonel is up there somewhere."

He swayed and stumbled against the platoon commander. Dick supported him with an arm.

"Hit?" asked Dick.

"Just what you'd notice," said the captain, straightening himself and reeling away.

"Go after him and do what you can for him," said Dick to one of his men. "Bandage him and then go look for an M. O."

Dick hurried on toward the forward edge of the village, strengthening his following as he went. The shelling was still heavy and the noise deafening, but the hand-to-hand fighting among the houses had lessened. Dick led his men through one wall of a house that had been hit by a heavy shell and through the other wall into a little garden. There were bricks and tiles and iron shards in that garden; and in the middle of it, untouched, a little arbor of grapevines. Dick passed through the arbor on his way to the broken wall at the foot of the garden. There were two benches in it and a small round table.

Dick went through the arbor in a second, and then he sprang to the broken crest of the wall. He had scarcely mounted upon it before something red burst close in front of his eyes.

Dick was not astonished to find himself in the old garden at Beaver Dam. The lilacs were in flower and full of bees and butterflies. He still wore his shrapnel helmet. It felt very uncomfortable, and he tried to take it off—but it stuck fast to his head. Even that did not astonish him. He saw an arbor of grapevines and entered it and sat down on a bench with his elbows on a small round table. He recognized it as the arbor he had seen that evening in Courcelette—the evening of September 15.

"I must have brought it home with me," he reflected. "The war must be over."

Flora entered the arbor then and asked him why he was wearing an officer's jacket. He thought it queer that she had not heard about his commission.

"I was promoted on the Somme—no, it was before that," he began, and then everything became dark. "I can't see," he said.

"Don't worry about that," replied a voice that was not Flora's. "Your eyes are bandaged for the time being. They'll be as well as ever in a few days."

"I must have been dreaming. Where am I—and what is wrong with me?"

"You are in No. 2 Canadian General Hospital and have been dreaming for almost a week. But you are doing very well."

"What hit me? And have I all my legs and arms?"

"It must have been a whiz-bang," replied the unknown voice. "You are suffering from head wounds that are not so serious as we feared and from broken ribs and a few cuts and gashes. You must drink this and stop talking."

Dick obediently drank it, whatever it was.

"I wish you could give me some news of the battalion, and then I'd keep quiet for a long time," he said.

"Do you want me to open and read this letter that your brother left for you two days ago?" asked the Sister.

She read as follows:

"Dear Dick. As your temperature is up and you refuse to know me I am leaving this note for you with the charming Sister who seems to be your C. O. just now. She tells me that you will be as fit as a fiddle in a month or so. Accept my congratulations on your escape and on the battle of Courcelette. I have written to Beaver Dam about it and cabled that you will live to fight again. Frank Sacobie and that psychological sergeant with a D. C. M. and bar are booked for Blighty, to polish up for their commissions. I called on them after the fight. They are well—but I can't say that they escaped without a scratch, for they both looked as if they had been mixing it up with a bunch of wildcats. Sacobie has a black eye and doesn't know who or what hit him.

"Do you remember Jim Hammond? He came over to a battalion of this division with a draft from England about four months ago. He looked me up one day last week and told me a mighty queer story about himself. I won't try to repeat it, for I am sure he'll tell it to you himself at the first opportunity. He is making good, as far as I can see and hear. Pat Hammond has a job in London now. He was badly gassed about a month ago. I will get another day's special leave as soon as possible and pay you another visit.

"Your affectionate brother, Henry Starkley."