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"Yes, yes, Marta! But I " If she were weakening it was not his place to try to strengthen her purpose. "I was thinking, only thinking!" she murmured reflectively. "That's not the thing now!" she added with sudden force. "Partow gave you the positions?" He described the Bordir position. She repeated the description after him with a stoical matter-of-factness to make sure that she had it correctly.
"And the duty of men like you and me, chosen for the purpose," said Partow, "is worthily to direct the courage that goes with moral right. The overt act of war must come from them by violating our frontier, not in the African jungle but here. Even when the burglar fingers the window-sash we shall not fire no, not until he enters our house.
He was taking a paper from his pocket and looking from one to another of his colleagues studiously; and she was conscious of that determination in his smile which she had first seen when he rose from the wreck of his plane. "This is from Partow: a message for you and the nation!" he announced, as he spread a few thin, typewritten pages out on the table.
Partow turned his thick, white palm toward a chair, and his smile, now clearly showing that he was not deeply offended with Lanstron's insubordination, had a singular charm. The smile vanished as Lanstron seated himself and in its place came such a look as friend Toil had seen on very rare occasions. "The way that the Grays gave out our despatch convinces me of their intentions," Partow said.
Lanstron had not forgotten the dead. He could see them; he could see everything that happened. Had not Partow said to him: "Don't just read reports. Visualize men and events. Be the artillery, be the infantry, be the wounded live and think in their places. In this way only can you really know your work!"
Then they may throw this old body onto the rubbish heap as soon as they please it is a fat, unwieldy behemoth of an old body!" "No, no, it isn't!" Lanstron objected hotly. He was seeing only what most people saw after talking with Partow for a few minutes, his fine, intelligent eyes and beautiful forehead.
Compliments from subordinates to superiors had not received Partow's favor and, therefore, not Lanstron's. Eccentric old Partow had once disparaged the Napoleonic idea as a fetich which had nothing to do with modern military efficiency, and he had added that if Napoleon were alive to-day nobody would be so prompt to see it as Napoleon himself.
"Yes, we all prefer army biscuits!" "We wouldn't touch a home dinner!" Stransky, his eyes drawing inward in their characteristic slant, was well pleased with his company, and the scattered exclamatory badinage kept on until it was interrupted by the arrival of the mail. Partow and Lanstron, understanding their machine as human in its elements, had chosen that the army should hear from home.
After all, the knoll was only a single point on the vast staff map only one of many points of a struggle whose progress was bulletined through the siftings of regimental, brigade, division, and corps headquarters in net results to the staff. Partow and Lanstron overlooked all. Their knowledge made the vast map live under their eyes.
"My department is ready," said Lanstron, "all except your decision about press censorship." "A troublesome point," responded Partow. "I have procrastinated because two definite plans were fully worked out. It is a matter of choice between them: either publicity or complete secrecy. You know I am no believer in riding two horses at once. My mind is about made up; but let me hear your side again.
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