Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 233, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1916 — The Luck of War [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Luck of War

By H. M. EGBERT

CJopyrlgut, 1916. by W. G. Chapman.) “The sentence of this court is that you are to be shot at daybreak." The young English officer spoke to the young German, caught within the British lines without uniform. Such an offense carries only one penalty with it In warfare. The spy is too dangerous a man to be dealt with in any other way. The German smiled ironically. The sergeant in charge of him conducted him to the guardhouse, but not before he had cast a meaning glance at Lieutenant Denis, who had communicated to him the court’s decision. All the while the eourt-martial was being held a German big gun was hammering away at a spot behind the British lines. It was a 42-centimeter howitzer, and was being fired apparently under the belief that some vital line of communication existed there. And the shells had been exploding nearer, each with a devastating uprush of soil and tree trunks. The night wore away. The prisoner in the guardhouse heard the gun playing without cessation. He had nerved himself to meet his fate. He had no fear, for that was the lot of a captured spy. Nor had he a sense of injustice. But he knew that Denis would come. Denis came at four o’clock when he returned from duty. He found the prisoner waiting for him, smoking on the bunk. “Well, Krauss,” said Denis. "I was expecting you,” said the other. “Lord, Denis, what a world away we are from Montclair 1” Denis nodded and gulped. “It was a hard thing to have to do, although we were not exactly the best of neighbors at Montclair,” he said. Krauss waved his hand deprecating-

ly. “I am glad it was not my fate to have to do it to you,” he said. “Do you remember when we used to run for the New York train in the mornings?” “And we always walked borne together at night,” said Denis. “Yes. That was when we were good neighbors. What a pity you ever mortgaged that piece of property to me!” “I had to raise some money quickly 4or business purposes,” said Denis. “And I had to foreclose,” answered Krauss. “Your business ventures were not successful.” “They would have been, if you hadn’t shut down on me,” answered the Englishman. “But what’s the good of thinking over those things now? This beastly war finished me. You know ray business interests were largely with England. I had to enlist—should have done so anyway, though. Got my commission after our first fight. I wonder what my wife —” He checked himself, and the German looked at him curiously. “So you are married?” he asked, evidently pleased with the news-. “I should have Ky now. But Kitty Loft promised to wait for me when I sailed. That was three months or, so before you left, wasn’t it? She’ll wait for me till the end of time —that girl. Denis, I want yori to write a note to her informing her—” ’ He broke off, for the first time filled with evident emotion. Denis nodded. “Pll let her know,”- he said'. “Do know, I always thought you cared for Miss Loft,” said Krauss, watching the other strangely. “Of course I regarded you as something of a rival uatil I learned that she cared for me. Whish!” The exclamation was caused by a shattering explosion from the big gun. A sentry came. to the door. “It’s knocked down the camp cbmm&ndant’s house, sir,” he explained. “Yes?” inquired Denis, rising. ■ He stretched out his hand to Krauss. * “I’ll see you in the morning,” said Krauss, with ghastly humor. Denis left him. Krauss paced his cell, smiling. He had loved Kitty devotedly, and, though she had promised to wait for him, he had a little fear that Denis * t . well, Denis was married,

and there waa no fear uow. Somewhere they would meet again, Kitty and he, in tbatland where aU~goo<rtHngs come true. " At six o’clock the guard came for him. He was led a few paces away from the guardhouse, to where a file of soldiers was drawn up. Their rifles were held in their hands at the slope. Krauss and Denis nodded. “No!” said Krauss, as the sergeant began to fasten- a white handkerchief about his eyes. “I’ll take it with my eyes open,” he said. The sergeant looked at Denla, who nodded. The rifles were raised. Krauss stood facing them. At that moment his face was singularly calm. “Whee-ee-ee 1” sang a big shell from the distance. Denis was waiting for it to fall before giving the command to fire. The sound came nearer and nearer. Suddenly the air was filled with flame. A terrific din was In their ears. Krauss was raised high in the air and flung down bodily into the grass. Slowly the sulphurous fumes died away. Krauss opened his eyes. Where the guardhouse had been there was not even the fragment of a structure. And where had been the rolling meadow was only a deep, barren pit, still full of dust and smoke. Out of the smoke a hand’s breadth away, emerged the face of Denis. His eyes were open and he was looking at Krauss. The two men continued to regard each other in silence for perhaps a minute. Then Denis slowly raised himself. His uniform was hanging from him in tatters. One arm hung limply at his side. But otherwise he did not seem to be injured. Krauss raised himself to a sitting position. Blood was dripping from his shoulder where a fragment of the shell had struck him. All about them there was absolute silence, except for the sudden outpouring of a lark’s song, high overhead. They watched each other with a grim question in their eyes. There remained nothing at all of the firing squad, except perhaps some mutilated bodies, burled under fifty tons of earth. The force of the explosion happened to have hurled the two men in one direction, while it traried the rest. That was all. It was the unappealable, inexorable law of war. Presently Dmils extracted his firstaid bandage Lid, crawling toward Krauss, began t# bandage his arm. Krauss submitted in silence, wincing a little as the stripped flesh was exposed under the sleeve. Denis wound the bandage about the wounded limb with deliberation. When he had finished he put his head on one side and surveyed his work critically. Then Krauss spoke for the first time. “Rather strange,” he suggested, "to bandage up a man who is to die in a few minutes.” Denis looked at him steadily'. “That sentence cannot be executed/ Krauss,” he said. “Why?’ ’inquired Krauss. “Because there is nothing to prevent yon from taking your chance at crawling back to your lines. Look 1” Wherfe the British outposts had been the eirt-tfi was piled into a succession of pits and caverns by the big guns. It was a No Man’s Land of desolation. “You.aren’t going to kill me, Then?” inquired the German. “No,” answered Denis. "We are both out of action now,” he added, looking at his arm.

“Permit me,” said Krauss. And, taking out his first aid bandage from his knapsack, he began to cut away the sleeve of the other’s wounded arm and to bind up the wound. “That’s about even, I think,” he said, when he had finished, looking critically at his work. “Now, I want to ask yo'u a question. Why didn’t you kill me? Why don’t you do it now? You are able to fire your revolver with your left hand, and I am unarmed. Is it because of the Montclair days?” ? “No." answered Denis. - “It isn’t heaping coals of fire on my head because I foreclosed on that mortgage of yours?” “No,” said Denis again. “Why, then?” < “Because I don’t have to, and I don’t want the job of sending news of your death to —to Miss Loft,” said Denis. “Are you satisfied?” “Entirely so.” “Then let me recommend you to get out as quick as you can before the ambulances «nne up,” said Denis. Krauss held out his hand, and Denis, after an Instant’s pause, took it “Good luck!” he said. “The luck of war,” answered the other, as he crawled out of the pit ~And Denis, weak and weary from niswound, watched the spy’s slow progressthroughthegrass untll he disappeared in the distance. Perhaps he had done wrong to let him go, he thought—but then, he was no executioner; and how could he write to his wife that he had put to death the man whom she had once loved and who thought that she still loved him?

Krauss Was Raised High In the Air.