From the opening now issued a red-faced private, bulky with fat.  One of his eyes was hidden from the public by a bandage, but the other surveyed the milling traffic with a humorous tolerance.  Though propelling himself with crutches, he had contrived to issue from the place with an air of careless sauntering.  Tenderly he eased his bulk to a flat stone, aforetime set in the church’s facade, and dropped a crutch at either side.  He now readjusted his hat, for the bandage going up over his shock of reddish hair had affected its fit.  Next he placed an inquiring but entirely respectful palm over the bandaged eye.

“Never was such a hell of a good eye, anyhow,” he observed, and winked the unhidden eye in testimony of his wit.  Then he plucked from back of an ear a half-smoked cigarette, relighted this, and leered humorously at the spreading tangle before him.

“Naughty, naughtykins!” he called to a driver of four mules who had risen finely to an emergency demanding sheer language.  “First chance I had to get a good look at the war, what with one thing and another,” he amiably explained to a sergeant of infantry who was passing.

Neither of his sallies evoked a response, but he was not rebuffed.  He wished to engage in badinage, but he was one who could entertain himself if need be.  He looked about for other diversion.

To the opening in the church wall came a nurse.  She walked with short, uncertain steps and leaned against the ragged edge of the wall, with one arm along its stone for support.  Her face was white and drawn, and for a moment she closed her eyes and breathed deeply of the dust-laden air.  The fat private on the stone, a score of feet away, studied her approvingly.  She was slight of form and her hair beneath the cap was of gold, a little tarnished.  He waited for her eyes to open, then hailed her genially as he waved at a tangle of camions and ambulances now blocking the bridge.

“Worse’n fair week back home on Main Street, hey, sister?”

But she did not hear him, for a battered young second lieutenant with one arm in a sling had joined her from the dusk of the church.

“Done up, nurse?” he demanded.

“Only for a second.  We just finished something pretty fierce.”

She pointed back of her, but without looking.

“Why not sit down on that stone?”

He indicated a fallen slab at her feet.  She looked at it with frank longing, but smiled a refusal.

“Dassent,” she said.  “I’d be asleep in no time.”

“Cheer up!  We’ll soon finish this man’s job.”

The girl looked at him with eyes already freshened.

“No, it won’t ever be finished.  It’s going on forever.  Nothing but war and that inside.”

Again she pointed back without turning her head.

“Another jam!”

The second lieutenant waved toward the makeshift bridge.  The girl watched the muddle of wheeled things and stiffened with indignation.