The Last Shot | Page 2

Frederick Palmer
a spectator of wars, under the spell of the growing cosmopolitanism that makes mankind more and more akin, I could not see it in that way and be true to my experience. My soldiers exist for my purpose only as human beings. Race prejudices they have. Race prejudice is one of the factors of war. But make the prejudice English, Italian, German, Russian, or French and there is the temptation for reader and author to forget the story of men as men and war as war. Even as in the long campaign in Manchuria I would see a battle simply as an argument to the death between little fellows in short khaki blouses and big fellows in long gray coats, so I see the Browns and the Grays in "The Last Shot" take the field.
But, though the scene is imaginary, the characters are from life. Their actions and their sayings are those of men whom I have studied under the stress of danger and sudden emergency. The delightful, boyish confidence of Eugene Aronson has been at my elbow in a charge; Feller I knew in the tropics as an outcast who shared my rations; Dellarme's last words I heard from a dying captain; the philosophy of Hugo Mallin is no less familiar than the bragging of Pilzer or the transformation of Stransky, who whistled a wedding-march as he pumped bullets at the enemy. In Lanstron we have a type of the modern officer; in the elder Fragini a type of the soldier of another day. Each marches in his place and plays his part in the sort of spectacle that I have often watched. If there be no particular hero, then I can only say, in confidence behind the scenes, that I have found no one man, however heroic in the martial imagination of his country, to be a particular hero in fact. Take, for example, our trembling little Peterkin, who won the bronze cross for courage.
As for Marta and Minna, they speak for another element--for a good half of the world's population that does not bear arms. In a siege once I had glimpses of women under fire and I learned that bravery is not an exclusively masculine trait. The game of solitaire? Well, it occurred in a house in the midst of bursting shells. But the part that Marta plays? Is it extravaganza? Not in war. The author sees it as something very real.
FREDERICK PALMER.

CONTENTS
I. A SPECK IN THE SKY II. TEN YEARS LATER III. OURS AND THEIRS IV. THE DIVIDENDS OF POWER V. OFF TO THE FRONTIER VI. THE SECOND PROPHECY VII. TIMES HAVE CHANGED VIII. THANKS TO A BUMBLEBEE IX. A SUNDAY MORNING CALL X. A LUNCHEON AT THE GALLANDS' XI. MARTA HEARS FELLER'S STORY XII. A CRISIS WITHIN A CRISIS XIII. BREAKING A PAPER-KNIFE XIV. IN PARTOW'S OFFICE XV. CLOSE TO THE WHITE POSTS XVI. DELLARME'S MEN GET A MASCOT XVII. A SUNDAY MORNING IN TOWN XVIII. THE BAPTISM OF FIRE XIX. RECEIVING THE CHARGE XX. MARTA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF WAR XXI. SHE CHANGES HER MIND XXII. FLOWERS FOR THE WOUNDED XIII. STRANSKY FIGHTS ALONE XXIV. THE MAKING OF A HERO XXV. THE TERRIBLE NIGHT XXVI. FELLER IS TEMPTED XXVII. HAND TO HAND XXVIII. AN APPEAL TO PARTOW XXIX. THROUGH THE VENEER XXX. MARTA MEETS HUGO XXXI. UNTO C?SAR XXXII. TEA ON THE VERANDA AGAIN XXXIII. IN FELLER'S PLACE XXXIV. THREE VOICES XXXV. MRS. GALLAND INSISTS XXXVI. MARKING TIME XXXVII. THUMBS DOWN FOR BOUCHARD XXXVIII. HUNTING GHOSTS XXXIX. A CHANGE OF PLAN XL. WITH FRACASSE'S MEN XLI. WITH FELLER AND STRANSKY XLII. THE RAM XLIII. JOVE'S ISOLATION XLIV. TURNING THE TABLES XLV. THE RETREAT XLVI. THE LAST SHOT XLVII. THE PEACE OF WISDOM

THE LAST SHOT

I
A SPECK IN THE SKY
It was Marta who first saw the speck in the sky. Her outcry and her bound from her seat at the tea-table brought her mother and Colonel Westerling after her onto the lawn, where they became motionless figures, screening their eyes with their hands. The newest and most wonderful thing in the world at the time was this speck appearing above the irregular horizon of the Brown range, in view of a landscape that centuries of civilization had fertilized and cultivated and formed.
At the base of the range ran a line of white stone posts, placed by international commissions of surveyors to the nicety of an inch's variation. In the very direction of the speck's flight a spur of foot-hills extended into the plain that stretched away to the Gray range, distinct at the distance of thirty miles in the bright afternoon light. Faithful to their part in refusing to climb, the white posts circled around the spur, hugging the levels.
In the lap of the spur was La Tir, the old town, and on the other side
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