“Dickie” was the wagon line subaltern, a second lieutenant who had got the D.S.O. in the Cambrai show, one of the stoutest lads God ever made. In my mind I had been relying on him enormously for the morrow.
“Is he bad? Where is he?”
“Just behind, sir,” said the Babe. “I don’t know how bad it is.”
Dickie came up on a horse. There was blood down the horse’s shoulder and he went lame slightly.
“Where is it, Dickie, Old Thing?”
His voice came from between his teeth. “A shrapnel bullet through the foot,” he said. “I’m damn sorry Major.”
“Let’s have a look.” I flashed a torch on it. The spur was bent into his foot just behind the ankle, broken, the point sticking in.
There was no doctor, no stretcher, no means of getting the spur out.
“Can you stick it? The wagon is piled mountains high. I can’t shove you on that. Do you think you can hang on till we get down to Flavy?”
“I think so,” he said.