It was all over in half an hour, the attack was driven out, and the men moved uncertainly about, trying to discover their dead, and relieve their wounded.
The dawn was gray and in the half light, Winn saw Lionel’s eyes open and shut; the blood was pouring from a hideous wound in his side.
“You’ve got to live,” Winn said grimly, bending over him. “No damned nonsense about it! You’ve got to live.” Lionel’s eyes closed again and he knew nothing more of the rough bandaging, the endless waiting in the sodden trench while Winn sat motionless beside him, watching his flickering breath. In the hours of the interminable journey, Lionel roused himself sometimes and heard again like a perpetual refrain, “You’ve got to live.” The motor ambulance jarred and bumped it, the wheels of the train echoed it through the fever in his brain. He woke in England knowing that he was going to live.
A few hours later Winn went to see the general of his division. “I want you to let me have another twenty-four in, sir,” he explained. “They won’t expect an attack so soon. I know my men are not very fresh, but it’ll wake them up. They’ve stood a good lot. I’ve been talking to ’em. They want to get a bit of their own back. That trench of theirs is too near us in any case. They’d be better pushed back.”
The general hesitated, but Winn’s fiery sunken eyes held and shook him.
“Well, Staines,” he said, “you know what you can do with your men, of course. Have it your own way. When do you want to attack?”
“Soon as they’ve settled off to sleep,” said Winn, “just to give ’em a night-cap.”
“Don’t lose too many men,” said the general, “and above all come back yourself.”
“That’s as may be,” said Winn. “If I can get the men over quietly in a bit of mist, I sha’n’t lose too many of ’em. I’ve told them if they’re too fagged to stand, they’d better fight. They quite agree about it.”