"I didn't hear the whistle to fall back," he said, "so I stayed."
"Didn't hear the whistle!" exclaimed the captain. He looked at the colonel and the colonel looked at him. The colonel stroked his mustache as if it were a nice mustache. "There wasn't any whistle," said Fracasse with a wry grin.
"Yes, my boy; and then?" asked the colonel, who had never before called any private in his regiment "my boy."
A bright light broke on Peterkin. Inherited instinct did not permit him to show much emotion on his face, and he had, too, an inherited gift of invention. He rubbed his rifle stock with his palm and bowed much in the fashion of the parent washing his hands in gratitude for a compliment.
"And I didn't want to run," he continued. "I wanted to take that hill. That was what we were told to do, wasn't it, sir?"
The light grew brighter, showing Peterkin's imagination the way to higher flights.
"I jumped quick into the crater, knowing that if I jumped quick I would not be hit," he proceeded, his thin voice accentuating his deferential modesty. "My! but the bullets were thick, going both ways! But I remembered the lectures to recruits said that it took a thousand to kill a man. I found that I had cover from the bullets from our side and some cover from their side. I could not lie there doing nothing, I decided, after I had munched biscuits for a while--"
"Coolly munching biscuits!" exclaimed the colonel.
"Yes, sir; so I began firing every time I had a chance and I picked off a number, I think, sir."
"My boy," said the colonel, putting his hand on Peterkin's shoulder, "I am going to recommend you for the bronze cross."
The bronze cross--desired of generals and privates--for Peterkin, when Pilzer had been so confident that he should win the first that came to the 128th now that Eugene Aronson was dead!
"And so modest about it!" added the colonel. "Remembered the lectures to recruits and acted on them faithfully!"
The old spirit of the nation was not dead. Here it was reappearing in a valet's son, as it was bound to reappear in all classes! Yes, Peterkin had supplied the one shining incident of the costly day to the colonel, who found himself without his headquarters for the night at the Galland house as planned, waiting for orders on this confounded little knoll. He was wondering if his regiment would be out in reserve and given a rest on the morrow, when an officer of the brigade staff brought instructions: