Page:The Book of the Homeless (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916).djvu/134

 The colonel recognized the generosity of this request, but he cut the young man short.

"An officer can't be transferred from his own corps to another," he said.

The day fixed for the attack came. The first company—François' company—was sent ahead to skirmish. It was simply mowed down. Another followed, and then another. They finally had to fall back, leaving their dead and part of the wounded on the field. The little second lieutenant was not among those who returned. Two days later our men took the offensive again. The elder brother, storming the German trenches with his regiment, passed close by the body of his little François as it lay there all shot to pieces. A bit farther on, a bullet caught him in the shoulder.

His captain ordered him back to have the wound dressed; he refused, kept on, and was hit full in the forehead.

The bodies were taken up and carried back to the ruins of the village. The sappers of the 26th said:

"He was a fine fellow, that little second lieutenant. He shan't go underground without a coffin, at any rate. Let's make one for him."

And they began sawing and hammering.

Then the men of the 27th put their heads together and said:

" There must be no difference between the two brothers. We might as well make a coffin for our lieutenant, too."

By nightfall, when they were ready to bury the brothers side by side, an old woman spoke up. She was a wretched old creature, so poor and broken that she stubbornly refused to leave the village. "I 've lived here, I'll die here," she kept on saying. She lay huddled up on some straw in her little hovel, and her only food was the leavings of the soldiers.

When she saw the bodies of the two lads and understood what was going on, she said:

"Wait a minute before you nail the covers on. I'm going to fetch something."