That was the autumn of the offensive of 1916, by which the French
retook, in ten days, what it had cost the Germans many months to gain.

Pierre was there in that glorious charge in the end of October which
carried the heights of Douaumont and took six thousand prisoners. He
was there at the recapture of the Fort de Vaux which the Germans
evacuated in the first week of November. In the last rush up the slope,
where he had fought long ago, a stray shell, an inscrutable messenger
of fate, coming from far away, no one knows whence, caught him and
ripped him horribly across the body.

It was a desperate mass of wounds. But the men of his squad loved their
corporal. He still breathed. They saw to it that he was carried back to
the little transit hospital just behind the Fort de Souville.

It was a rude hut of logs, covered with sand-bags, on the slope of the
hill. The ruined woods around it were still falling to the crash of
far-thrown shells. In the close, dim shelter of the inner room Pierre
came to himself.

He looked up into the face of Father Courcy. A light of recognition and
gratitude flickered in his eyes. It was like finding an old friend in
the dark.

"Welcome!--But the fort?" he gasped.

"It is ours," said the priest.

Something like a smile passed over the face of Pierre. He could not
speak for a long time. The blood in his throat choked him. At last he