Kurt meant to make the most of his opportunity.  To him, in his peculiar need, this meeting would be of greater significance than all else that had happened to him in France.  The nearest soldier sat on a flattened pile of straw around which the ground was muddy.  At first glance Kurt took him to be an African, so dark were face and eyes.  No one heeded Kurt’s approach.  The moment was poignant to Kurt.  He spoke French fairly well, so that it was emotion rather than lack of fluency which made his utterance somewhat unintelligible.  The soldier raised his head.  His face seemed a black flash—­his eyes piercingly black, staring, deep, full of terrible shadow.  They did not appear to see in Kurt the man, but only the trim, clean United States army uniform.  Kurt repeated his address, this time more clearly.

The Frenchman replied gruffly, and bent again over the faded worn coat he was scraping with a knife.  Then Kurt noticed two things—­the man’s great, hollow, spare frame and the torn shirt, stained many colors, one of which was dark red.  His hands resembled both those of a mason, with the horny callous inside, and those of a salt-water fisherman, with bludgy fingers and barked knuckles that never healed.

Dorn had to choose his words slowly, because of unfamiliarity with French, but he was deliberate, too, because he wanted to say the right thing.  His eagerness made the Frenchman glance up again.  But while Dorn talked of the long waits, the long marches, the arrival at this place, the satisfaction at nearing the front, his listener gave no sign that he heard.  But he did hear, and so did several of his comrades.

“We’re coming strong,” he went on, his voice thrilling.  “A million of us this year!  We’re untrained.  We’ll have to split up among English and French troops and learn how from you.  But we’ve come—­and we’ll fight!”

Then the Frenchman put on his coat.  That showed him to be an officer.  He wore medals.  The dark glance he then flashed over Dorn was different from his first.  It gave Dorn both a twinge of shame and a thrill of pride.  It took in Dorn’s characteristic Teutonic blond features, and likewise an officer’s swift appreciation of an extraordinarily splendid physique.

“You’ve German blood,” he said.

“Yes.  But I’m American,” replied Dorn, simply, and he met that soul-searching black gaze with all his intense and fearless spirit.  Dorn felt that never in his life had he been subjected to such a test of his manhood, of his truth.

“My name’s Huon,” said the officer, and he extended one of the huge deformed hands.

“Mine’s Dorn,” replied Kurt, meeting that hand with his own.