elfth somewhat resembled the advance of a
great crowd of beaters who, for some reason, passionately desired to
start the game. Men stumbled; men fell; men swore; there were cries:
"This way!" "Come this way!" "Don't go that way!" "You can't get up that
way!" Over the rocks the Twelfth scrambled, red in the face, sweating
and angry. Soldiers fell because they were struck by bullets, and
because they had not an ounce of strength left in them. Colonel Sponge,
with a face like a red cushion, was being dragged windless up the steeps
by devoted and athletic men. Three of the older captains lay afar back,
and swearing with their eyes because their tongues were temporarily out
of service.

And yet-and-yet, the speed of the charge was slow. From the position of
the battery, it looked as if the Kickers were taking a walk over some
extremely difficult country.

The regiment ascended a superior height, and found trenches and dead
men. They took seat with the dead, satisfied with this company until
they could get their wind. For thirty minutes purple-faced stragglers
rejoined from the rear. Colonel Sponge looked behind him, and saw that
Richie, with his staff, had approached by another route, and had
evidently been near enough to see the full extent of the Kickers'
exertions. Presently Richie began to pick a way for his horse towards
the captured position. He disappeared in a gully between two hills.

Now it came to pass that a Spitzbergen battery on the far right took
occasion to mistake the identity of the Kicking Twelfth, and the captain
of these guns, not having anything to occupy him in front, directed his
six 3.2's upon the ridge where the tired Kickers lay side by side with
the Rostina dead. A shrapnel came swinging over the Kickers, seething
and fuming. It burst directly over the trenches, and the shrapnel, of
course, scattered forward, hurting nobody. But a man screamed out to his
officer: "By God, sir, that is one of our own batteries!" The whole line
quivered with fright. Five more shells streaked overhead, and one flung
its hail into the middle of the 3rd battalion's line, and the Kicking
Twelfth shuddered to the very centre of its heart, and arose, like one
man, and fled.

Colonel Sponge, fighting, frothing at the month, dealing blows with his
fist right and left, found himself confronting a fury on horseback.
Richie was as pale as death, and his eyes sent out sparks. "What does
this conduct mean?" he flashed out be