“I don’t like fighting any more,” said Private Cowan.

“Pushed ’em across the crick,” said Private Brennon.  “Now we chase ’em!”

So they joined the chase and fought again at Jaulgonne, where it rained for three days and nights, and Private Cowan considered his life in danger because he caught cold; it might develop into pneumonia.  He didn’t want to get sick and die—­not now.  It had not, of late, occurred to him that he would be in any danger save from sickness.  But he threw off the menacing cold and was fit for the big battle at Fismes, stubbornly pronounced “Fissims” by Private Brennon, after repeated corrections.

Private Cowan thought now, when not actually engaged at his loose trade, of his brother.  He wished the boy could have been with him.  He would have learned something.  He would have learned that you feel differently about a country if once you fight for it.  His country had been only a name; he had merely ached to fight.  Now he hated fighting; words could never tell how he loathed it; but his country had become more than a name.  He would fight again for that.  He wished Merle could have had this new feeling about his country.

It was before Fismes, being out where he had no call to be, and after winning a finish fight with a strangely staring spectacled foe, that he stumbled across the inert form of Private Brennon, who must also have gone where he had no call to go.  He leaned over him.  Spike’s mask was broken, but half adjusted.  He shouldered the burden, grunting as he did so, angered by the weight of it.  He was irritated, too, by men who were firing at him, but his greater resentment was for Spike’s unreasonable mass.

“You son of a gun—­hog fat!  Overweight, that’s what you are!  You’ll never make a hundred and thirty-three again, not you!  Gee, gosh, a light heavyweight, that’s what you are!”

He complained to the unhearing Spike all the way back to a dressing station, though twice refusing help to carry his load.

“Mustard gas,” said the surgeon.

He was back there when Spike on his stretcher came violently to life.

“What a dark night!” said Spike between two of the spasms that wrenched him.  “Can’t see your hand before your face!”

“Say, you’re hog fat!” grumbled Private Cowan.  “You weigh a ton!”

“It’s dark, but it feels light—­it’s warm.”

Private Cowan leaned to shield the sun from Spike’s garbled face.

“Sure it’s dark!” said he.

“Can’t see your hand before your face!”

Spike was holding up a hand, thumb and fingers widely spread, moving it before his sightless eyes.

“You got to go back.  You’re too fat to be up here.”

He rested his hand on Spike’s forehead but withdrew it quickly when Spike winced.

He went on with the war; and the war went on.

* * * * *