That was the stunning reality to Dorn—­the actual existence of the Huns a few rods distant.  But realization of them had not brought him to the verge of panic.  He would not flinch at confronting the whole German army.  Nor did he imagine he put a great price upon his life.  Nor did he have any abnormal dread of pain.  Nor had the well-remembered teachings of the Bible troubled his spirit.  Was he going to be a coward because of some incalculable thing in him or force operating against him?  Already he sat there, shivering and sweating, with the load on his breast growing laborsome, with all his sensorial being absolutely at keenest edge.

Rapid footfalls halted his heart-beats.  They came from above, outside the dugout, from the trench.

“Dorn, come out!” called the corporal.

Dorn’s response was instant.  But he was as blind as if he had no eyes, and he had to feel his way to climb out.  The indistinct, blurred form of the corporal seemed half merged in the pale gloom of the trench.  A cool wind whipped at Dorn’s hot face.  Surcharged with emotion, the nature of which he feared, Dorn followed the corporal, stumbling and sliding over the wet boards, knocking bits of earth from the walls, feeling a sick icy gripe in his bowels.  Some strange light flared up—­died away.  Another rumble, distinct, heavy, and vibrating!  To his left somewhere the earth received a shock.  Dorn felt a wave of air that was not wind.

The corporal led the way past motionless men peering out over the top of the wall, and on to a widening, where an abutment of filled bags loomed up darkly.  Here the corporal cautiously climbed up breaks in the wall and stooped behind the fortification.  Dorn followed.  His legs did not feel natural.  Something was lost out of them.  Then he saw the little figure of Rogers beside him.  Dorn’s turn meant Rogers’s relief.  How pale against the night appeared the face of Rogers!  As he peered under his helmet at Dorn a low whining passed in the air overhead.  Rogers started slightly.  A thump sounded out there, interrupting the corporal, who had begun to speak.  He repeated his order to Dorn, bending a little to peer into his face.  Dorn tried to open his lips to say he did not understand, but his lips were mute.  Then the corporal led Rogers away.

That moment alone, out in the open, with the strange, windy pall of night—­all-enveloping, with the flares, like sheet-lightning, along the horizon, with a rumble here and a roar there, with whistling fiends riding the blackness above, with a series of popping, impelling reports seemingly close in front—­that drove home to Kurt Dorn a cruel and present and unescapable reality.