There followed swift, broken murmurs, incoherent, annoyingly, to the listener, but the soldier’s arms had not relaxed and the arms of the girl were visibly compressed about his neck.  Then they fell half apart once more.  The watcher saw that the girl was weeping, convulsed with long, dry, shuddering sobs.

“As you were!” he again commanded, and the order was almost instantly obeyed.

Presently they talked again, quick, short speech, provokingly blurred to the private’s ears.

“Louder!” he commanded.  “We can’t hear at the back of the hall.”

The muffled talk went on, one hand of the girl ceaselessly patting the shoulder where it had rested.

Now a real command came.  The line of men rose, its head by the bridge coming up first.  The pair by the church drew apart, blended again momentarily.  The soldier sped back to his place, leaving the girl erect, head up, her shining eyes upon him.  He did not look back.  The line was marking time.

The fat private saw his moment.  He reached for his crutches and laboriously came to his feet.  Hands belled before his mouth, he trumpeted ringingly abroad:  “Let the war go on!”

An officer, approaching from the bridge, seemed suddenly to be stricken with blindness, deafness, and a curious facial paralysis.

Once more the column undulated over the tawny crest of the hill.  The nurse stood watching, long after her soldier had become indistinguishable in the swinging, grayish-brown mass.

“Hey, nurse!” the fat private, again seated, called to her.

To his dismay she came to stand beside him, refreshed, radiant.

“What you think of the war?” he asked.

He was embarrassed by her nearness.  He had proposed badinage at a suitable distance.

“This war is nothing,” said the girl.

“No?” The private was entertained.

“Nothing!  A bore, of course, but it will end in a minute.”

“Sure it will!” agreed the private.  “Don’t let no one tell you different.”

“I should think not!  This man’s war won’t bother me any more.”

“Not any more?” demanded the private with insinuating emphasis.

“Not any more.”

The private felt emboldened.

“Say, sister”—­he grinned up at her—­“that boy changed your view a lot, didn’t he?”

“You mean to say you were here?” She flashed him a look of annoyance.

“Was I here?  Sister, we was all here!  The whole works was here!”

She reflected, the upper lip drawn down.

“Who cares?” she retorted.  She turned away, then paused, debating with herself.  “You—­you needn’t let it go any farther, but I’ve got to tell someone.  It was a surprise.  I was never so bumped in my whole life.”

The private grinned again.

“Lady, that lad just naturally put a comether on you.”

She considered this, then shook her head.