To Kit a sudden madness seemed to have possessed the world. The deck danced before him. He was bumped; he was battered; he was hurled to and fro—a twig in a torrent.
All was dreadful; all was dizzy. Strange faces with appalling eyes rose before him; men breathing terribly flitted past. There was a smell of blood and sweat in his nostrils; a sound of panting and blasphemies in his ears.
This then was a battle—not much like the stories! All the same he wished they wouldn't tread on his toes so.
Blindly the boy slashed about him. Whether he killed them, or they killed him, he hardly knew, and didn't greatly care. A sort of instinct told him the men to stab at—the dirty beasts in shirts who showed their teeth. The naked men were his own lot.
Once he heard a voice beside him.
"Go it, little un! you're almost a man!"
Then the Gunner staggered by, all black eyes and straining face, his arms about a huge boarder, his teeth deep in the fellow's shoulder.
"Rip this ——'s backside up!" came a gurgling voice.
His hand went up automatically; automatically his dirk came down.
A mountain fell on top of him….
As he crept out a voice panted hard by,