Part 19

Dusty Miller sliced off a wedge of bread with the knife edge against his thumb, popped it in his mouth, and followed it with a corner of cheese.

"A-ah!" he said profoundly, and still munching; "there's no sense in saving rations when you're going into action. I'd a chum once that always did that; said he got more satisfaction out of a meal when the job was over and he was real hungry, and had a chance to eat in comfort--more or less comfort. And one day we was for it he saved a tin o' sardines and a big chunk of cake and a bottle of pickled onions that had just come to him from home the day before; said he was looking forward to a good feed that night after the show was over. And--and he was killed that day!"

Dusty Miller halted there with the inborn artistry that left his climax to speak for itself.

"Hard luck!" said Toffee sympathetically. "So his feed was wasted!"

"Not to say wasted exactly," said Dusty, resuming bread and cheese. "Because I remembers to this day how good them onions was. Still it was wasted, far as he was concerned--and he was particular fond o' pickled onions."

But even the prospect of wasting his rations did nothing to induce Toffee to eat a meal. The man on Toffee's right was crouched back on the firing-step apparently asleep or near it. Dusty Miller had turned and opened a low-toned conversation with the next man, the frequent repetition of "I says" and "she says" affording some clew to the thread of his story and inclining Toffee to believe it not meant for him to hear. He felt he must speak to some one, and it was with relief that he saw Halliday, the man on his other side, rouse himself and look up. Something about Toffee's face caught his attention.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, leaning forward and speaking quietly. "This is your first charge, isn't it!"

"Yes," said Toffee, "I'm all right. I--I think I'm all right."

The other moved slightly on the firing-step, leaving a little room, and Toffee took this as an invitation to sit down. Halliday continued to speak in low tones that were not likely to pass beyond his listener's ear.

"Don't you get scared," he said. "You've nothing much to be scared about."

He threw a little emphasis, and Toffee fancied a little envy, into the "you."

"I'm not scared exactly," said Toffee. "I'm sort of wondering what it will be like."

"I know," said Halliday, "I know; and who should, if I didn't? But I can tell you this--you don't need to be afraid of shells, you don't need to be afraid of bullets, and least of all is there any need to be afraid of the cold iron when the Hotwaters get into the trench. You don't need to be afraid of being wounded, because that only means home and a hospital and a warm dry bed; you don't need to be afraid of dying, because you've got to die some day, anyhow. There's only one thing in this game to be afraid of, and there isn't many finds that in their first engagement. It's the ones like me that get it."

Toffee glanced at him curiously and in some amazement. Now that he looked closely, he could see that, despite his easy loungeful attitude and steady voice, and apparently indifferent look, there was something odd and unexplainable about Halliday: some faintest twitching of his lips, a shade of pallor on his cheek, a hunted look deep at the back of his eyes. Everton tried to speak lightly.

"And what is it, then, that the likes o' you get?"

Halliday's voice sank to little more than a whisper. "It's the fear o' fear," he said steadily. "Maybe, you think you know what that is, that you feel it yourself. You know what I mean, I suppose?"

Toffee nodded. "I think so," he said. "What I fear myself is that I'll be afraid and show that I'm afraid, that I'll do something rotten when we get out up there."

He jerked his head up and back towards the open where the rifles sputtered and the bullets whistled querulously.

"There's plenty fear that," admitted Halliday, "before their first action; but mostly it passes the second they leave cover and can't protect themselves and have to trust to whatever there is outside, themselves to bring them through. You don't know the beginning of how bad the fear o' fear can be till you have seen dozens of your mates killed, till you've had death no more than touch you scores of times, like I have."

"But you don't mean to tell me," said Toffee incredulously, "that you are afraid of yourself, that you can't trust yourself now? Why, I've heard said often that you're one of the coolest under fire, and that you don't know what fear is!"

"It's a good reputation to have if you can keep it," said Halliday. "But it makes it worse if you can't."

"I wish," said Toffee enviously, "I was as sure of keeping it as you are to-day."

Halliday pulled his hand from his pocket and held it beside him where only Toffee could see it. It was quivering like a flag-halliard in a stiff breeze. He thrust it back in his pocket.

"Doesn't look too sure, does it?" he said grimly. "And my heart is shaking a sight worse than my hand."

He was interrupted by the arrival of a group of German shells on and about the section of trench they were in. One burst on the rear lip of the trench, spattering earth and bullets about them and leaving a choking reek swirling and eddying along the trench. There was silence for an instant, and then an officer's voice called from the near traverse. "Is anybody hit there!" A sergeant shouted back "No, sir," and was immediately remonstrated with by an indignant private busily engaged in scraping the remains of a mud clod from his eye.

"You might wait a minute, Sergeant," he said, "afore you reports no casualties, just to give us time to look round and count if all our limbs is left on. And I've serious doubts at this minute whether my eye is in its right place or bulging out the back o' my head; anyway, it feels as if an eight-inch Krupp had bumped fair into it."

When the explosion came, Toffee Everton had instinctively ducked and crouched, but he noticed that Halliday never moved or gave a sign of the nearness of any danger. Toffee remarked this to him.

"And I don't see," he confessed, "where that fits in with this hand- and heart-shaking o' yours."