But someone below must have understood English and quickly translated, because long cries of "Kamerad, Kamerad," floated eerily up, as if a cover had been lifted from some pit in hell releasing the wails of incarcerated spirits. Answering with yells of derision the troops climbed to the street level and formed to receive prisoners; whereupon, casting rifles aside as they gained the open, the inhabitants of this underworld filed out.
When the catacombs had been searched and quantities of munitions for the machine-guns salvaged, Jeb led the way back across the now silent No Man's Land that had passed into the pages of history. One by one the other units were picked up, standing guard over captured positions. Everything had been swept into the Allied pocket at an insignificant cost.
Dawn had not yet streaked the east. Except for a fitful shot somewhere back across the plain, where an overstrained sentry fired at a shadow, the world slept. The regiment, flushed and happy, sprang down into its trench; and Jeb was turning glumly toward the gravelly road, when the Colonel stepped after him.
"I haven't your name," he said. "I want to send it in."
"Oh, that's all right," Jeb answered, afraid to look at this commander of men, lest even in the dim light his stricken conscience might be revealed.
"But it isn't all right," the officer smiled. "I heard what you did earlier to-night--a rather fine thing, that!--and now you've turned another trick, giving us eight hundred prisoners, twelve machine-gun sections, and various stuff. You deserve a mention."
"Then just tell 'em," Jeb began; but he could not claim it and, blushing guiltily, hurried off, yelling over his shoulder: "It isn't worth while, really!"
Yet there had been something else that happened out on the field which meant a great deal more to him. It had been while they were marching homeward, when this same officer had laid a hand upon his arm and said: "I hope the American army which landed yesterday is made up of your stuff!" The words did not in any sense imply doubt; merely compliment, but Jeb inwardly cringed because the American Army had been graded, even in ignorance, with such as he. At that instant he had made a resolve--an earnest, solemn resolve--to join that army and, by its influence, prove himself worthy.