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Show Bot 'l‘lllC IMHK H 'lIICS'l‘ "No more." l illl>\\'('l‘(‘1l. H You will not lu‘ slay lll" lir'i‘e in THE FOREST 265 was a general meeting place. The officers of the battery, two middle-aged and two very young indeed, were ex "Not tonight." tremely eourteous and begged us to make use of them in any "\Vt‘ have :1 nice room here." way possible. They were living in the raggedest fashion, a week's growth of beard on their chins, their beds unmade, the floor littered with ends of cigarettes, pieces of paper, journals. "No, thank you." "Perhaps one 111' you "No, \Ve are returning to night." "l'erhaps. for an hour 11' tun." 'l'heu smiling at me and laughing a little. "l have known many ollieers . very many." "No, thank you." I said sterulv. "l have a sister." >llt‘ said. She turned, eryiug: "Marie, Mariel" A little girl. who could not have been more than fourteen years ot‘ age, appeared l‘rom the baekground. She also was I‘L‘tl'CllPClK‘tl and plump: ll! r hair also was arranged in black, shining eurls. She stood looking at us, half smiling, half detiant, sucking her tinger. "She also has known otlicers," said the girl. "She would be very glad, if you eared---" I heard their father behind the bar humming to himself. "Come out of this 3" I said to 'l'renehanl. "( ‘onie away l" lle followed me quietly, bowing very politely to the star- They resembled animals in a cave. When they were not on duty they played chemin-(Ze-fer and slept. Meanwhile for three days and nights our work was slight. The battle drew further away into the Forest. Wagons with wounded came to us only at long inter 'als. The result of these three days was a strange new intirnaey between the four of us. I have never in all my life seen anything more charming than the behaviour of Nikitin and Andrey Vassilievitch to Trenehard. There is some- thing about Russian kindness that is both simpler and more, tactful than any other kindness in the world. Taet is too often another name for insincerity, but Russian kindheart- edness is the most honest impulse in the Russian soul, the bequality that comes first, before anger, before injustice, l'ore prejudice, before slander, before disloyalty, and over- ing Sisters. . . . "Go on," I said to Nikolai. "Drive on. No time t0 waste. \Ve've got work to do." On our return we found that the press of work was DOt as yet severe. "Been here weeks," they apologetically explained to us. "Come in and have a meal with us whenever you like." Half the building belonged to us, the re maining half being used by the otlieers of the batteryXikitin had arranged a large room, that must I thinl: have been a diningroom in happier days, with beds; to the right ""45 the Operating-room, overhead were our bedrooms and the room where originally I had sat with Marie Ivanovna 'lren- ridcs them all. They were, of course, conscious that chard's case was worse than their own. Marie Ivanovnas the1r death had shocked them, but she had been outside {lirenelnird lives and already she was fading from them. tune was another matter. Nikitin seemed to me for the lll'St ldCillHTlC his in my knowledge of him to come down from but never dreaming. He {cared for Trenehard like a child, obtrusively. Trenchard seemed to appreciate it, but the"? nervcs was something about him that I did not like. llis |
