At eleven o’clock one of the Kansas men came to tell Claude that his Corporal was going fast.  Big Tannhauser’s fever had left him, but so had everything else.  He lay in a stupor.  His congested eyeballs were rolled back in his head and only the yellowish whites were visible.  His mouth was open and his tongue hung out at one side.  From the end of the corridor Claude had heard the frightful sounds that came from his throat, sounds like violent vomiting, or the choking rattle of a man in strangulation,—­and, indeed, he was being strangled.  One of the band boys brought Claude a camp chair, and said kindly, “He doesn’t suffer.  It’s mechanical now.  He’d go easier if he hadn’t so much vitality.  The Doctor says he may have a few moments of consciousness just at the last, if you want to stay.”

“I’ll go down and give my private patient his egg, and then I’ll come back.”  Claude went away and returned, and sat dozing by the bed.  After three o’clock the noise of struggle ceased; instantly the huge figure on the bed became again his good-natured corporal.  The mouth closed, the glassy jellies were once more seeing, intelligent human eyes.  The face lost its swollen, brutish look and was again the face of a friend.  It was almost unbelievable that anything so far gone could come back.  He looked up wistfully at his Lieutenant as if to ask him something.  His eyes filled with tears, and he turned his head away a little.

“Mein’ arme Mutter!” he whispered distinctly.

A few moments later he died in perfect dignity, not struggling under torture, but consciously, it seemed to Claude,—­like a brave boy giving back what was not his to keep.

Claude returned to his cabin, roused Fanning once more, and then threw himself upon his tipping bunk.  The boat seemed to wallow and sprawl in the waves, as he had seen animals do on the farm when they gave birth to young.  How helpless the old vessel was out here in the pounding seas, and how much misery she carried!  He lay looking up at the rusty water pipes and unpainted joinings.  This liner was in truth the “Old Anchises”; even the carpenters who made her over for the service had not thought her worth the trouble, and had done their worst by her.  The new partitions were hung to the joists by a few nails.

Big Tannhauser had been one of those who were most anxious to sail.  He used to grin and say, “France is the only climate that’s healthy for a man with a name like mine.”  He had waved his good-bye to the image in the New York harbour with the rest, believed in her like the rest.  He only wanted to serve.  It seemed hard.

When Tannhauser first came to camp he was confused all the time, and couldn’t remember instructions.  Claude had once stepped him out in front of the line and reprimanded him for not knowing his right side from his left.  When he looked into the case, he found that the fellow was not eating anything, that he was ill from homesickness.  He was one of those farmer boys who are afraid of town.  The giant baby of a long family, he had never slept away from home a night in his life before he enlisted.