The flakes were still coming down heavily.  It was the biggest snow that he had yet seen in Europe and he believed that it would fall all night.  They had plenty of blankets and spreading two on the shelf which was no broader than himself he lay down and put two more over him.

He was in a pleasant mental glow, because he had saved young Kratzek, forgetting the rest who lay out there under the snow.  All his instincts were for mercy and gentleness, but like others, he was being hardened by war, or at least he was made forgetful.  Resting in the earthen side of a trench, the horrors of the battle passed out of his mind.  The white gloom was so heavy there that he could not see the other wall four feet away, and the falling flakes almost grazed his face as they passed, but he had a marvelous sense of comfort and ease, even of luxury.  The caveman had fared no better, often worse, because he had no blankets, and John drew a deep sigh of content.

A gun thundered somewhere far back in the German lines, and a gun also far back in the French lines thundered in reply.  Then came a random and scattering fire of rifles through the falling snow from both sides, but John was not disturbed in the least by these reports.  He felt as safe in his narrow trench as if he had been a hundred miles from the field of battle, and compared, with the driving storm outside, his six feet by one of an earthen bed was all he wished.  The pleasant warmth from the blankets flowed through his veins, and his limbs and senses relaxed.  There was firing again, faint and from a distant point, but it was soothing now like the tune played on the little mouth-organ earlier in the evening, and he fell into a deep and peaceful slumber.

When he awoke in the morning the sun was shining in the trench, the bottom of which was covered with eight inches of snow, now slushy on top from the red beams.  John felt himself restored and strong, and he stepped down into the snow and slush, having first tucked his blue-gray trousers into his high boots.  He was lucky in the possession of a fine pair of boots that would turn the last drop of water, and in such times as these they were worth more than gold.

A shell screaming high overhead was his morning salutation, and then came other shells, desultory but noisy.  John paid no more attention to them than if they had been distant bees buzzing.  He looked at his young prisoner, Kratzek, and found that he was still sleeping, with a healthy color in his face.  John was impressed anew by his youth.  “Why do they let such babies come to the war?” he asked himself, but he added, “They’re brave babies, though.”

“Well, he’s pulling along all right,” said Carstairs.  “I was up before you and I learned that Captain Colton sent a surgeon in the night to examine him.  Wharton had done a good job with his bandages, he admitted, but he cleaned and dressed the wound and said the patient was in such a healthy condition that he would be entirely well again in a short time.  He’s only a young boy, isn’t he, Scott?”