against having to spend his life watching his father's sheep.
He may even win the race from Marathon.

Another Greek who was a most interesting figure to us was a Lieutenant
Ambroise Frantzis. He was in command of the mountain battery on the
flat, round top of the high hill. On account of its height the place
seemed much nearer to the sun than any other part of the world, and the
heat there was three times as fierce as in the trenches below. When you
had climbed to the top of this hill it was like standing on a
roof-garden, or as though you were watching a naval battle from a
fighting top of one of the battleships. The top of the hill was not
unlike an immense circus ring in appearance. The piled-up earth around
its circular edge gave that impression, and the glaring yellow wheat that
was tramped into glaring yellow soil, and the blue ammunition-boxes
scattered about, helped out the illusion. It was an exceedingly busy
place, and the smoke drifted across it continually, hiding us from one
another in a curtain of flying yellow dust, while over our heads the
Turkish shells raced after each other so rapidly that they beat out the
air like the branches of a tree in a storm. On account of its height,
and the glaring heat, and the shells passing, and the Greek guns going
off and then turning somersaults, it was not a place suited for
meditation; but Ambroise Frantzis meditated there as though he were in
his own study. He was a very young man and very shy, and he was too busy
to consider his own safety, or to take time, as the others did, to show
that he was not considering it. Some of the other officers stood up on
the breastworks and called the attention of the men to what they were
doing; but as they did not wish the men to follow their example in this,
it was difficult to see what they expected to gain by their braggadocio.
Frantzis was as unconcerned as an artist painting a big picture in his
studio. The battle plain below him was his canvas, and his nine mountain
guns were his paint brushes. And he painted out Turks and Turkish cannon
with the same concentrated, serious expression of countenance that you
see on the face of an artist when he bites one brush between his lips and
with another wipes out a false line or a touch of the wrong color. You
have seen an artist cock his head on one side, and shut one eye and frown
at his canvas, and then select several brushes and mix different colors
and hit the canvas