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"I wanted a glimpse of the front as well as the rear," Lanstron remarked in explanation of his presence to the general of brigade as he passed on toward Marta, who was thinking that she, at least, was not in awe of him; she, at least, saw clearly and truly his part. "Marta! Marta!"
"Thank you, but they're coming for me," said Lanstron to Westerling as he glanced up the road. Westerling was looking at the wreck. Lanstron, who recognized him as an officer, though in mufti, kicked a bit of the torn cloth over some apparatus to hide it. At this Westerling smiled faintly.
The Lanstron of twenty-five, who had met catastrophe because he was "wool-gathering," asserted himself. He put his hand on Stransky's shoulder. It was a strong though slim hand that looked as if it had been trained to do the work of two hands in the process of its owner's own transformation.
She struck the stone with her knuckles and it gave out the sound of hollow wood, which was followed, as an echo, by a little laugh from Lanstron. Pressing the button, a panel door flew open, revealing a telephone mouthpiece and receiver set in the recess.
If trouble never comes singly, why shouldn't joys come in a pour? Oh, it she could see me now, so cosey up here among the birds, chucking shells about as cheerily as if I were tossing roses to the ladies in a ballroom!" "She wants you to have every chance," said Lanstron. "She asks that for me!"
"No doctor who ever examined me for promotion has yet found that I wasn't flesh and blood," Lanstron remarked a little plaintively. "Then the doctor must have kept the truth from Partow," she told him with a faint return of the teasing spirit that he knew well. "He wants only men of steel, with nerves of copper wire run by an electric battery, on his staff, I'm sure."
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.
She thought of her talk with Lanstron over the telephone and how mad and feminine and feeble it must have sounded to a mind working in the inexorable processes of the clash of millions of men.
Their voices grew louder with the interest of their discussion. I caught something about appropriations and aeroplanes and Bordir and Engadir, and saw that Lanstron was pleading with his chief. He wanted a sum appropriated for fortifications to be applied to building planes and dirigibles.
He personified war. Westerling personified war. "I suppose you have spies under his very nose in his very staff offices?" she asked. "And probably he has in ours," said Lanstron, "though we do our best to prevent it." "What a pretty example of trust among civilized nations!" she exclaimed. "And you say that Westerling, who commands the killing on his side, will be in no danger?" "Naturally not.
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