it and stood aside. And now they could smell the men before they even entered—that thin strong ineradicable stink of front lines: of foul mud and burnt cordite and tobacco and ammonia and human filth. Then the thirteen men entered, led by the sergeant with his slung rifle and closed by another armed private, bare-headed, unshaven, alien, stained still with battle, bringing with them still another compounding of the smell—wariness, alertness, just a little of fear too but mostly just watchfulness, deploying a little clumsily as the sergeant spoke two rapid commands in French and halted them into line. The old general turned to the British colonel. ‘Colonel?’ he said.
‘Yes sir,’ the colonel said immediately. ‘The corporal.’ The old general turned to the American.
‘Captain?’ he said.
‘Yes sir,’ the American said. ‘That’s him. Colonel Beale’s right—I mean, he cant be right——’ But the old general was already speaking to the sergeant.
‘Let the corporal remain,’ he said. ‘Take the others back to the ante-room and wait there.’ The sergeant wheeled and barked, but the corporal had already paced once out of ranks, to stand not quite at attention but almost, while the other twelve wheeled into file, the armed private now leading and the sergeant last, up the room to the door, not through it yet but to it, because the head of the file faltered and fell back on itself for a moment and then gave way as the old general’s personal aide entered and passed them and then himself gave way aside until the file had passed him, the sergeant following last and drawing the door after him, leaving the aide once more solus before it, boneless, tall, baffled still and incredulous still but not outraged now: merely disorganised. The British colonel said:
‘Sir.’ But the old general was looking at the aide at the door. He said in French:
‘My child?’
‘The three women,’ the aide said. ‘In my office now. While we have our hands on them, why dont——’
‘Oh yes,’ the old general said. ‘Your authority for detached duty. Tell the Chief-of-Staff to let it be a reconnaissance, of—say—four hours. That should be enough.’ He turned to the British colonel. ‘Certainly, Colonel,’ he said.
The colonel rose quickly, staring at the corporal—the high calm composed, not wary but merely watchful, mountain face looking, courteous and merely watchful, back at him. ‘Boggan,’ the colonel said. ‘Dont you remember me? Lieutenant Beale?’ But still the face only looked at him, courteous, interrogatory, not baffled: just blank, just waiting. ‘We thought you were dead,’ the colonel said. ‘I——saw you——’
‘I did more than that,’ the American captain said. ‘I buried him.’ The old general raised one hand slightly at the captain. He said to the Briton:
‘Yes, Colonel?’
‘It was at Mons, four years ago. I was a subaltern. This man was in my platoon that afternoon when they … caught us. He went down before a lance. I.… saw the point come through his back before the shaft broke. The next two horses galloped over him. On him. I saw that too, afterward. I mean, just for a second or two, how his face looked after the last horse, before I—I mean, what had used to be his face——’ He said, still staring at the corporal, his voice if anything even more urgent because of what its owner had now to cope with: ‘Boggan!’ But still the corporal only looked at him, courteous, attentive, quite blank. Then he turned and said to the old general in French:
‘I’m sorry. I understand only French.’
‘I know that,’ the old general said also in French. He said in English to the Briton: ‘Then this is not the man.’
‘It cant be, sir,’ the colonel said. ‘I saw the head of that lance. I saw his face after the horses——Besides, I—I saw——’ He stopped and sat there, martial and glittering in his red tabs and badges of rank and the chain-wisps symbolising the mail in which the regiment had fought at Crecy and Agincourt seven and eight hundred years ago, with his face above them like death itself.
‘Tell me,’ the old general said gently. ‘You saw what? You saw him again later, afterward? Perhaps I know already—the ghosts of your ancient English bowmen there at Mons?—in leather jerkins and hose and crossbows, and he among them in khaki and a steel helmet and an Enfield rifle? Was that what you saw?’
‘Yes sir,’ the colonel said. Then he sat erect; he said quite loudly: ‘Yes sir.’
‘But if this could be the same man,’ the old general said.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the colonel said.
‘You wont say either way: that he is or is not that man?’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the colonel said. ‘I’ve got to believe in something.’
‘Even if only death?’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the colonel said. The old general turned to the American.
‘Captain?’ he said.
‘That puts us all in a fix, doesn’t it?’ the American captain said. ‘All three of us; I dont know who’s worst off. Because I didn’t just see him dead: I buried him, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. His name is—was—no, it cant be because I’m looking at him—wasn’t Brzonyi. At least it wasn’t last year. It was—damn it—I’m sorry sir—is Brzewski. He’s from one of the coal towns back of Pittsburgh. I was the one that buried him. I mean, I commanded the burial party, read the service: you know. We were National Guard; you probably dont know what that means ——’
‘I know,’ the old general said.
‘Sir?’ the captain said.
‘I know what you mean,’ the old general said. ‘Continue.’
‘Yes sir.—Civilians, organised our own company ourselves, to go out and die for dear old Rutgers—that sort of thing; elected our officers, notified the government who was to get what commission and then got hold of the Articles of War and tried to memorise as much of it as we could before the commission came back. So when the flu hit us, we were in the transport coming over last October, and when the first one died—it was Brzewski—we found out that none of us had got far enough in the manual to find out how to bury a dead soldier except me—I was a
