The long patrol

by Albert M. Treynor

By twisting his body he could force his left arm under his back far enough to touch his right shoulder blade. He pulled out handfuls of snow, and at length touched the bare ground. The frost was still in the earth, but warming suns of the last week had somewhat softened the surface soil, and he found he could scratch out small particles with his fingernails. He kept it up, digging and clawing, until his fingers grew numb and his nails had broken down to the quick. The hole he had scooped out was no more than the span of his thumb, but he took encouragement from the knowledge that he had made even such slight impression upon the frozen earth. He searched the pockets he could reach for some tool to use in place of fingernails, and found his watch had been left with him. It would have to serve. Breaking the hinges, he removed the lid from the case, and set to work again.

All that morning he scraped and chiseled at the soil under his body. Progress was infinitely slow, but each excavated grain of earth meant just that much advance towards freedom, and he began to believe that if his strength held out he might in time liberate himself. The weight of the tree gradually crushed the feeling from his broken shoulder, and the twinges of pain were endurable.

The sun climbed high, beating upon him with blazing warmth. Everywhere about him he could hear the drip and trickle of melting snows. From the creek an occasional crackling sound told him that the softening ice was preparing to release the stream from its winter toils. Birds twittered restlessly above him, without finding time to look his direction. A pika, the little chief hare of the mountains, shambled forth from a hole in a nearby drift to bask on a rock. A brilliant harlequin duck whistled past overhead, searching for open water. The air was sweet and balmy, redolent of the scent of approaching spring. He wondered if spring would ever come again for him, and the thought always seemed to revive his flagging strength.

The afternoon wore on by dragging, aching minutes, and still he chipped and scratched at the ground below the tree. At long intervals he paused briefly to rest, and then went doggedly back to work. From time to time he quenched his thirst with melted snow. He felt no hunger. But as the sun disappeared and the blue shadows of early twilight began to creep up the mountain slopes, a growing weakness threatened at last to overcome his bravest resolution. He had cut out a six inch hollow beneath his shoulder blade, but the tree still pinned his upper arm and shoulder to the ground. He clenched his teeth and tried to wriggle clear, but the effort was useless, and he fell back gasping as the old pain stabbed again through his tormented body. The hole must be scooped twice as large before he could hope to release himself.

He had the will to keep on digging, but physical endurance failed him. Queer, mottled shadows had begun to swim before his eyes, and a gray fog seemed to be stealing upon his brain. He tried desperately to stay awake, but his eyelids kept closing as though weighted with lead. At last he gave up the effort. Perhaps a few hours' rest would recruit his energies, and he could return afresh to his digging. Meanwhile he was overpowered by the drowsiness of utter exhaustion. He relaxed with a sigh, pillowed his head against the rough bark of the tree, and without actual knowledge of what was happening he slipped away into the stupor of sleep.

The sense of time was lost to him. It might have been minutes, or many hours later, when his slumbering faculties aroused to a vague perception of some sound that tried to reach his ears. The impression came like something heard in the depths of a dream: a faint, far-off voice—a voice calling him by name. By a tremendous effort he struggled back to dim wakefulness, forced his eyelids apart.

Still dazed by sleep, he attempted to sit up; but a sharp spasm of pain reminded him of his hapless plight. He was still lying in the snow, held down by the weight of the fallen tree. His lips set with a groan, as he blinked vacantly before him. It was night, and the rim of a new moon had pushed up through a notch in the mountains, flooding the white landscape with a soft, silvery glow. As he listened in the breathless silence, he again caught the sound that had aroused him, heard his own name called in the night.

"Corporal Dexter!" The cry carried to him from the other side of the brook, clear, anxious, insistent. It was a woman's voice, and the tone was strangely familiar.

With a wondering breath he bent his head backward to stare towards the dismal thicket across the way. He told himself that he must be asleep, dreaming. But as he waited with bated breath he heard the voice again. "David!" cried the unseen speaker. "Where are you? Answer me. Oh, please!"

An unaccountable trembling seized him. The call came to him in beseeching accents. It was the voice that he had kept alive in memory through the dreary months of winter, and now he was certain that his imagination was cruelly tantalizing him. He could not believe his hearing. Nevertheless he would have answered if he could. He tried to call out, but his tongue refused to move, and speech choked back into his throat. It was as though he feared the spell would break at the slightest sound from his own lips.