Corporal Sam | Page 9

the walls, where the conflagration had burnt itself out, there
were patches of black shadow to be crossed carefully. The fighting had
been obstinate here, and more than one blazing house had collapsed
into the thick of it. The corporal picked his way gingerly, shivering a
little at the thought of some things buried, or half-buried, among the
loose stones. Indeed, at the head of the first street his foot entangled
itself in something soft. It turned out to be nothing more than a man's
cloak, or poncho, and he slipped it on, to hide his uniform and avoid
explanations should he fall in with one of the patrols; but the feel of it
gave him a scare for a moment.
The lad, in fact, was sick of fighting and slaughter--physically ill at the
remembrance and thought of them. The rage of the assault had burnt its

way through him like a fever and left him weak, giddy, queasy of
stomach. He had always hated the sight of suffering, even the suffering
of dumb animals: and as a sportsman, home in England, he had learnt
to kill his game clean, were it beast or bird. In thought, he had always
loathed the trade of a butcher, and had certainly never guessed that
soldiering could be--as here in San Sebastian he had seen it--more
bestial than the shambles.
For some reason, as he picked his road, his mind wandered away from
the reek and stink of San Sebastian and back to England, back to
Somerset, to the slopes of Mendip. His home there had overlooked an
ancient battle-field, and as a boy, tending the sheep on the uplands, he
had conned it often and curiously, having heard the old men tell tales of
it. The battle had been fought on a wide plain intersected by many
water-dykes. Twice or thrice he had taken a holiday to explore it, half
expecting that a close view would tell him something of its history; but,
having no books to help him, he had brought back very little beyond a
sense of awe that so tremendous a thing had happened just there, and
(unconsciously) a stored remembrance of the scents blown across the
level from the flowers that lined the dykes-- scents of mint and
meadow-sweet at home there, as the hawthorn was at home on the hills
above.
He smelt them now, across the reek of San Sebastian, and they wafted
him back to England--to boyhood, dreaming of war but innocent of its
crimes--to long thoughts, long summer days spent among the
unheeding sheep, his dog Rover beside him--an almost thoroughbred
collie, and a good dog, too, though his end had been tragic. . . . But
why on earth should his thoughts be running on Rover just now?
Yet, and although, as he went, England was nearer to him and more
real than the smoking heaps between which he picked his way, he
steered all the while towards the upper town, through the square, and
up the hill overlooked by the convent and the rocky base of the citadel.
He knew the exact position of the house, and he chose a narrow
street--uninhabited now, and devastated by fire--that led directly to it.
The house was untouched by fire as yet, though another to the left of it

blazed furiously. It clung, as it were a swallow's nest, to the face of the
cliff. A garden wall ran under the front; and, parallel with the wall, a
road pretty constantly swept by musketry fire from the convent. At the
head of the street Corporal Sam stumbled against a rifleman who,
sheltered from bullets at the angle of the crossing, stood calmly
watching the conflagration.
'Hallo!' said the rifleman cheerfully; 'I wanted some more audience, and
you're just in time.'
'There's a child in the house, eh?' panted Corporal Sam, who had come
up the street at a run.
The rifleman nodded. 'Poor little devil! He'll soon be out of his pain,
though.'
'Why, there's heaps of time! The fire won't take hold for another
half-hour. What's the best way in? . . . You an' me can go shares, if
that's what you're hangin' back for,' added Corporal Sam, seeing that
the man eyed him without stirring.
'Hi! Bill!' the rifleman whistled to a comrade, who came slouching out
of a doorway close by, with a clock in one hand, and in the other a
lantern by help of which he had been examining the inside of this piece
of plunder. 'Here's a boiled lobster in a old woman's cloak, wants to
teach us the way into the house yonder.'
'Tell him to go home,' said Bill, still peering into the works of the clock.
'Tell him we've been there.' He chuckled a moment, looked up,