Pierre was there in that glorious charge in the end of October which carried the heights of Douaumont and took six thousand prisoners.  He was there at the recapture of the Fort de Vaux which the Germans evacuated in the first week of November.  In the last rush up the slope, where he had fought long ago, a stray shell, an inscrutable messenger of fate, coming from far away, no one knows whence, caught him and ripped him horribly across the body.

It was a desperate mass of wounds.  But the men of his squad loved their corporal.  He still breathed.  They saw to it that he was carried back to the little transit hospital just behind the Fort de Souville.

It was a rude hut of logs, covered with sand-bags, on the slope of the hill.  The ruined woods around it were still falling to the crash of far-thrown shells.  In the close, dim shelter of the inner room Pierre came to himself.

He looked up into the face of Father Courcy.  A light of recognition and gratitude flickered in his eyes.  It was like finding an old friend in the dark.

“Welcome!—­But the fort?” he gasped.

“It is ours,” said the priest.

Something like a smile passed over the face of Pierre.  He could not speak for a long time.  The blood in his throat choked him.  At last he whispered: 

“Tell Josephine—­love.”

Father Courcy bowed his head and took Pierre’s hand.  “Surely,” he said.  “But now, my dear son Pierre, I must prepare you—­”

The struggling voice from the cot broke in, whispering slowly, with long intervals:  “Not necessary. . . .  I know it already. . . .  The penance. . . .  France. . . .  Jeanne d’Arc. . . .  It is done.”

A few drops of blood gushed from the corner of his mouth.  The look of peace that often comes to those who die of gunshot wounds settled on his face.  His eyes grew still as the priest laid the sacred wafer on his lips.  The broken soldier was made whole.