Meanwhile the officer on horseback was approaching slowly and proudly.
The tension grew in the orderly's soul. Then again, seeing the Captain
ease himself on the saddle, the flash blazed through him.

The Captain looked at the patch of light blue and scarlet, and dark
head's, scattered closely on the hillside. It pleased him. The command
pleased him. And he was feeling proud. His orderly was among them in
common subjection. The officer rose a little on his stirrups to look.
The young soldier sat with averted, dumb face. The Captain relaxed on
his seat. His slim-legged, beautiful horse, brown as a beech nut,
walked proudly uphill. The Captain passed into the zone of the company's
atmosphere: a hot smell of men, of sweat, of leather. He knew it very
well. After a word with the lieutenant, he went a few paces higher, and
sat there, a dominant figure, his sweat-marked horse swishing its tail,
while he looked down on his men, on his orderly, a nonentity among the
crowd.

The young soldier's heart was like fire in his chest, and he breathed
with difficulty. The officer, looking downhill, saw three of the young
soldiers, two pails of water between them, staggering across a sunny
green field. A table had been set up under a tree, and there the slim
lieutenant stood, importantly busy. Then the Captain summoned himself to
an act of courage. He called his orderly.

The name leapt into the young soldier's throat as he heard, the command,
and he rose blindly, stifled. He saluted, standing below the officer. He
did not look up. But there was the flicker in the Captain's voice.

"Go to the inn and fetch me..." the officer gave his commands. "Quick !"
he added.

At the last word, the heart of the servant leapt with a flash, and
he felt the strength come over his body. But he turned in mechanical
obedience, and set on at a heavy run downhill, looking almost like a
bear, his trousers bagging over his military boots. And the officer
watched this blind, plunging run all the way.

But it was only the outside of the orderly's body that was obeying so
humbly and mechanically. Inside had gradually accumulated a core into
which all the energy of that young life was compact and concentrated.
He executed his commisssion, and plodded quickly back uphill. There was
a pain in his head, as he walked, that made him twist his features
unknowingly. But hard there in the centre of his chest was himself,
himself, firm, and not to be plucked to piec