and everything, but that didn't seem
to work. So there was nothing to it but to get wounded. So he took to
going to the front posts; but the trouble was that it was a hell of a
quiet sector and no shells ever came within a mile of it. At last
somebody made a mistake and a little Austrian eighty-eight came tumbling
in and popped about fifty yards from his staff car. He showed the most
marvellous presence of mind, 'cause he clapped his hand over his eye and
sank back in the seat with a groan. The doctor asked what was the
matter, but old Duval just kept his hand tight over his eye and said,
'Nothing, nothing; just a scratch,' and went off to inspect the posts.
Of course the posts didn't need inspecting. And he rode round all day
with a handkerchief over one eye and a look of heroism in the other. But
never would he let the doctor even peep at it. Next morning he came out
with a bandage round his head as big as a sheik's turban. He went to see
headquarters in that get-up and lunched with the staff-officers. Well,
he got his Croix de Guerre all right--cited for assuring the evacuation
of the wounded under fire and all the rest of it."

"Some bird. He'll probably get to be a general before the war's over."

Howe poured out the last of the champagne, and threw the bottle
listlessly off into the grass, where it struck an empty shell-case and
broke.

"But, Will, you can't like this," he said. "It's all so like an
ash-heap, a huge garbage-dump of men and equipment."

"I suppose it is ..." said the ruddy-faced youth, discovering the grease
on his nose and rubbing it off with the back of his hand. "Damn those
dirty Fords. They get grease all over you! I suppose it is that life was
so dull in America that anything seems better. I worked a year in an
office before leaving home. Give me the garbage-dump."

"Look," said Martin, shading his eyes with his hand and staring straight
up into the sky. "There are two planes fighting."

They both screwed up their eyes to stare into the sky, where two bits of
mica were circling. Below them, like wads of cotton-wool, some white and
others black, were rows of the smoke-puffs of shrapnel from
anti-aircraft guns.

The two boys watched the specks in silence. At last one began to grow
larger, seemed to be falling in wide spirals. The other had vanished.
The falling aeroplane started rising again into the middle sky, then
stopped suddenly, burst into flames, and fluttered down behind the
hill