“And I didn’t want to run,” he continued.  “I wanted to take that hill.  That was what we were told to do, wasn’t it, sir?”

“Yes, yes!” said the colonel.  “Go on!”

The light grew brighter, showing Peterkin’s imagination the way to higher flights.

“I jumped quick into the crater, knowing that if I jumped quick I would not be hit,” he proceeded, his thin voice accentuating his deferential modesty.  “My! but the bullets were thick, going both ways!  But I remembered the lectures to recruits said that it took a thousand to kill a man.  I found that I had cover from the bullets from our side and some cover from their side.  I could not lie there doing nothing, I decided, after I had munched biscuits for a while—­”

“Coolly munching biscuits!” exclaimed the colonel.

“Yes, sir; so I began firing every time I had a chance and I picked off a number, I think, sir.”

“My boy,” said the colonel, putting his hand on Peterkin’s shoulder, “I am going to recommend you for the bronze cross.”

The bronze cross—­desired of generals and privates—­for Peterkin, when Pilzer had been so confident that he should win the first that came to the 128th now that Eugene Aronson was dead!

“I—­I—­” stammered Peterkin.

“And so modest about it!” added the colonel.  “Remembered the lectures to recruits and acted on them faithfully!”

The old spirit of the nation was not dead.  Here it was reappearing in a valet’s son, as it was bound to reappear in all classes!  Yes, Peterkin had supplied the one shining incident of the costly day to the colonel, who found himself without his headquarters for the night at the Galland house as planned, waiting for orders on this confounded little knoll.  He was wondering if his regiment would be out in reserve and given a rest on the morrow, when an officer of the brigade staff brought instructions: 

“The batteries are going to emplace here for your support in the morning.  You will move as soon as your men have eaten and occupy positions B-31 to B-35.  That gives you a narrow front for one battalion, with two battalions in reserve to drive home your attack.  The chief of staff himself desires that we take the Galland house before noon.  The enemy must not have the encouragement of any successes.”

“So easy for Westerling to say,” thought the colonel; while aloud he acknowledged the message with proper spirit.

Before the order to move was given the news of it passed from lip to lip among the men in tired whispers.  Since dawn they had lived through the impressions of a whole war, and they had won.  With victory they had not thought of the future, only of their hunger.  After the nightmare of the charge, after hearing death whispering for hours intimately in their ears, they were too weary and too far thrown out of the adjustments of any natural habits of thought and feeling to realize the horror of eating their dinners in the company of the dead.  Now they were to go through another hell, but many of them in their exhaustion were chiefly concerned as to whether or not they should get any sleep that night.