All went black for Peter. The slope rose up and took him. For an he felt someone at him—hands of terrible strength that would not let him die, would not let him sleep. After that a familiar voice began calling at .  
“Hello,” said Peter at last. “What have I been doing?”
 
“Not anything that you've pulled before. Is this an old habit?”
 
“What?”
 
“Passing out unhurt—lying like a log for an hour or two?”
 
“No, it's a new one. Where are we?”
 
“Judenbach. It's past supper time—”
 
Peter sat up, wobbled. The terrible hands steadied him again. He knew now what had him.
 
“Where is she?” he asked.
 
“Huh?”
 
“I was wondering what hit me?”
 
“Now, you're getting again,” said Boylan. Peter's reserve had interposed. His absence had something to do with her, but he could not remember. “Where is she?” had got away from him as he crossed the border back into the racking physical . He didn't like that.
 
“Did I say anything?”
 
“Nothing that will be used against you,” Boylan observed. “As for what hit you—that's the mystery. Not a scratch in sight.... I was behind. You were still as a after that shrapnel. Presently you bowled over—”
 
“That shrapnel?”
 
“Yep—”
 
There was an instant of silence; the picture returned and a from Peter. All the energy of his life rebelled against the fact. Boylan's hand upon him. For the moment Mowbray was in a kind of .
 
“The moon had just come up,” he said, “like another sun. The real sun was still in the sky from our hill.”
 
“I know. I was there. Cut it, Peter.”
 
“Where is Samarc?”
 
“In one of the hospital buildings, likely. I meant to find him as soon as I could leave you—”
 
“I'll go with you.”
 
Big Belt in his saddled bags for a , brought it in one hand, a cup of water in the other....
 
They were in the streets, very dark. Once they were caught in a swift current of sheep driven in for the commissary. Judenbach sat on the slope of a hill, a little city, its heart of stone, very ancient, its “hoopskirts,” as Boylan said, made of woven-cane huts. Already the stone buildings of the narrow main street were crowded with wounded. The correspondents were not permitted far either way from headquarters. Finally it was necessary to get Dabnitz of the staff to conduct them.... It had all been a of ambulances at nightfall from the field, the said. Russian soldiers were not ticketed. Many faces on the cots were bandaged beyond recognition. The three gave up at midnight, Peter gaining strength rather than losing it in the later hours. Orders were that the streets be emptied of all but .
 
“No, nothing like that—” said Boylan, as Mowbray sank to the floor by his blanket roll. “You haven't had supper—”
 
“Don't, Boylan.... I say, what do they do with the dead?”
 
Rain was pattering down; the smell of drugs reached them.
 
“It does make a difference when you know one of them—doesn't it?.... God, man, we're with wounded. The dead are at peace—”
 
“I wonder what stars he's watching to-night?”
 
“Come, come. Peter—”
 
“I know.... I know, Boylan. Only it shows me something. He was a great workman. There are things in the world that can't be done because he's gone. ............