He walked up the newly trodden road into Chastel, and then he darted back again to cover.  He saw the gleam of many gray uniforms and he heard a clank which he knew could be made only by the wheels of cannon.  The new forces of the enemy were coming and evidently they were now in great strength in Chastel and beyond it.  John’s heart leaped in alarm.  It was a powerful flank movement, a daring and successful attempt under cover of the storm, and he recognized at once all his dangers.

Keeping as well under cover as he could, he turned and raced toward the bridge.  He saw the misty smoke hovering over the hospital camp, and he did not believe that any adequate force to meet the Germans could be found there, but alarms could be sent in every direction.

He expected that more than one shot would be sent after his flying figure, but none came and his swift flight took him far toward the river.  Then he saw a long line of dark forms before him and the flashing tips of bayonets.  Holding his arms high above his head he shouted in French over and over again that he was a friend, and then ran almost directly into the arms of a short muscular man in the uniform of a French colonel.

“Bougainville!” he cried.

“Aye, Mr. Scott, it is I!  My regiment is here and many others.”

“Then look out.  Chastel is full of Germans.”

“It is for them that we’ve come!”

CHAPTER VI

JOHN’S RESOLVE

John stood weakly, and with heart palpitating, but it was only for a few moments.  Strength poured back in a full tide, and he said to Bougainville: 

“You’ll let me go back with you?”

“Of course, but there’s heavy fighting ahead.  Messages warned us in the night that the Germans had broken through, and ever since the storm stopped the wireless has been talking to us, giving us the exact details.  We’ve been marching for hours.  My regiment was the first to cross the river but, as you see, others are close behind.”

“And you command them all?”

The eyes of the former Apache of Montmartre glittered.

“Yes,” he replied.  “It was an honor that General Vaugirard assigned to me.  I lead the vanguard.”

Except the radiance from his eyes he showed no emotion.  John noticed that his features were cast in the antique mold.  The pallor and thinness of his face accentuated his powerful features, and once more John was reminded of the portraits of the young Napoleon.  Could there be such a thing as reincarnation?  But he remembered that while a new mind like Napoleon’s might be possible a new career like Napoleon’s was not.  Then all thoughts of any kind upon the subject were driven from his mind by the flash of firing that came from Chastel.

The rifles were rattling fast, and with them soon came the heavy crash of artillery.  Bougainville ran up and down his lines, but, to John’s surprise, he was holding his men back, rather than urging them on.  But he quickly saw the reason.  He heard the hissing and shrieking of shells over his head and he saw them bursting in Chastel.  The fire increased so fast and became so tremendous in volume that all the French lay down in the snow, and John put his fingers in his ears lest he be deafened.