“I thought so!” cried Feller.  “Attacks on frontal positions by daylight are going out of fashion!”

It was he who mercifully arrested the shower of hand-grenades that followed the exit of the enemy.  Two of the guns of the castle batteries, having changed their position, were making havoc enough at pointblank range, with a choice of targets between the Grays huddled on the other side of the breastwork and those in retreat.

“We’ll have peace for a few hours now,” said Stransky, squinting down his nose.  “And we’ll have something to eat.  I ought to have got that fellow with the beauty-spot on his physiognomy, but, confound him, he was an eel!”

By this time the men had recovered their breath.  It occurred to them by common impulse that a cheer was due, and for the first time they broke into a hurrah with wide-open throats.

“Another—­for Dellarme!” called Stransky, who seemed to think that he and not the callow lieutenant was in command.

This they gave, standing instinctively at attention, with heads bared, for the leader whose spirit survived in them; a cheer with triumph in its roar, but a different sort of triumph from the first cheer.

Listening to it were the wounded among the Grays who had fallen within the breastwork to be trampled by the Browns as they had pressed forward.  The doctor, but a moment ago a fiend himself with features of rage, now, in the second nature of his calling, with a look of tender sympathy, was ministering without distinction of friend or foe.  One of the Grays, his cheek bearing the mark of a boot heel, raised himself, and, in defiance and the satisfaction of the thought to his bruises and humiliation, pointing his finger at Feller, Marta heard him say: 

“You there, in your straw hat and blue blouse, they’ve seen you—­a man fighting and not in uniform!  If they catch you it will be a drumhead and a firing squad at dawn!”

“That’s so!” replied Feller gravely.  “But they’ll have to make a better job of it than you fellows did if they’re going to——­”

He turned away abruptly but did not move far.  His shoulders relaxed into the gardener’s stoop, and he pulled his hat down over his eyes and lowered his head as if to hide his face.  He was thus standing, inert, when a division staff-officer galloped into the grounds.

“Splendid!  Splendid!  There’s some iron crosses in this for you!” he was shouting before he brought his horse to a standstill.  “The way you held on gained the day for Lanstron’s plan.  They tried to flank in the valley after their second attack on your position failed We drew them on and had them—­a battalion in close order—­under the guns for a couple of minutes.  It was ghastly!  Our losses have been heavy enough, but nothing to theirs—­and how they are driving their men in!  But where is Major Dellarme?”

When he saw Dellarme’s still body he dismounted and in a tide of feeling which, for the moment, submerged all thought of the machine, stood, head bowed and cap off, looking down at Dellarme’s face.