“T-t-seu-u-u-h!  T-t-seu-oo!  T-t-seu-oo!”—­they went like cloud after cloud of lightning-winged insects, and passing, by God’s mercy and the Spaniard’s bad marksmanship—­passing high.  Between two crashes, came a sudden sputter, and some singing thing began to play up and down through the trees, and to right and left, in a steady hum.  It was a machine gun playing for the range—­like a mighty hose pipe, watering earth and trees with a steady, spreading jet of hot lead.  It was like some strange, huge monster, unseeing and unseen, who knows where his prey is hidden and is searching for it blindly—­by feeling or by sense of smell—­coming ever nearer, showering the leaves down, patting into the soft earth ahead, swishing to right and to left, and at last playing in a steady stream about the prostrate soldiers.

“Swish-ee!  Swish-ee!  Swishee!”

“Whew!” said Abe Long.

“God!” said Reynolds.

Ah, ye scornful veterans of the great war.  In ten minutes the Spaniard let fly with his Mauser more bullets than did you fighting hard for two long hours, and that one machine gun loosed more death stings in an hour than did a regiment of you in two.  And they were coming from intrenchments on an all but vertical hill, from piles of unlimited ammunition, and from soldiers who should have been as placid as the earth under them for all the demoralization that hostile artillery fire was causing them.

And not all of them passed high.  After that sweep of glistening steel rain along the edge of the woods rose the cry here, there, everywhere: 

“Hospital man! hospital man!”

And here and there, in the steady pelt of bullets, went the quiet, brave fellows with red crosses on their sleeves; across the creek, Crittenden could see a tall, young doctor, bare-headed in the sun, stretching out limp figures on the sand under the bank—­could see him and his assistants stripping off blouse and trousers and shirt, and wrapping and binding, and newly wounded being ever brought in.

And behind forged soldiers forward, a tall aide at the ford urging them across and stopping a panic among volunteers.

“Come back, you cowards—­come back!  Push ’em back, boys!”

A horse was crossing the stream.  There was a hissing shriek in the air, a geyser spouting from the creek, the remnants of a horse thrown upward, and five men tossed in a swirl like straw:  and, a moment later, a boy feebly paddling towards the shore—­while the water ran past him red with blood.  And, through it all, looking backward, Crittenden saw little Carter coming on horseback, calm of face, calm of manner, with his hands folded over his saddle, and his eyes looking upward—­little Carter who had started out in an ambulance that morning with a temperature of one hundred and four, and, meeting wounded soldiers, gave up his wagon to them, mounted his horse, and rode into battle—­to come out normal at dusk.  And behind him—­erect, proud, face aflame, eyes burning, but hardly less cool—­rode Basil.  Crittenden’s eyes filled with love and pride for the boy.