Page:The King in Yellow (1895).djvu/226

214 “I see, you can’t speak. Can I do anything?”

The wounded man rummaged in his haversack and produced a crust of black bread.

“He can’t eat it, his jaw is smashed, and he wants you to chew it for him,” said the soldier next to him.

Trent took the crust, and grinding it in his teeth, morsel by morsel, passed it back to the starving man.

From time to time, mounted orderlies sped to the front covering them with slush. It was a chilly silent march through sodden meadows wreathed in fog. Along the railroad embankment across the ditch, another column moved parallel to their own, Trent watched it, a sombre mass, now distinct, now vague, now blotted out in a puff of fog. Once for half an hour he lost it, but when again it came into view, he noticed a thin line detach itself from the flank, and, bellying in the middle, swing rapidly to the west. At the same moment a prolonged crackling broke out in the fog in front. Other lines began to slough off from the column, swinging east and west, and the crackling became continuous. A battery passed at full gallop and he drew back with his comrades to give it way. It went into action a little to the right of his battalion, and as the shot from the first rifled piece boomed through the mist, the cannon from the fortifications opened with a mighty roar. An officer galloped by shouting something which Trent did not catch, but he saw the ranks in front suddenly part company with his own, and disappear in the twilight. More officers rode up and stood beside him peering into the fog. Away in front the crackling had become one prolonged crash, It was dreary waiting.