When he awoke the moonlight was streaming over the stricken field. He bit his lip to keep from crying out at the sudden spasm of pain in his shoulder, and then something he saw almost stopped the beating of his heart. A figure was slowly crawling towards him, inch by inch, but steadily, ominously coming nearer with every moment. His left arm was helpless, and he tried to reach for his bayonet by turning over.
"Pard, are you dead?"
Never did sounds of sweetest music fall more gratefully on human ears than the words uttered by Private Waller on the night of October 16, 1916, on No Man's Land, Somewhere in France.
"Thank God!" cried Montague, his voice weak and quavering. "Waller—old—boy."
"Damn!" muttered Private Waller. The Germans, with customary fiendishness, were searching the ground with rifle-fire to prevent any attempt at rescue. "Are you much hurt, pard?"
"I'm used up pretty bad," Montague answered weakly, and in incorrect English. Things change in No Man's Land.
"I'm the third as has come after you," whispered Waller; "Sykes and Thompson got theirs."
"Coming—for me?" Montague's voice trailed off into a querulous sob.
"Sure—those of us as got back shook hands on it that we'd get the Duke back dead or alive."
Montague tried to speak, but only two scalding tears slowly trickled down his cheeks. He was weak from loss of blood, and he was learning a bitter lesson in the moonlight on the stricken field.