“Where am I?” he asked faintly.
“You’re all right now, sir,” someone answered him. “You’ll have to sit up a bit, ‘cos we’ve a lot o’ men an’ not much room. But you’re on the light railway, an’ the truck’ll run you the half-mile to the Post in a matter o’ minutes.”
“What time is it?” asked Drew. “How’s the show going?”
“It’s near two o’clock, sir. An’ we hear all the objectives is taken.”
“Near two,” said Drew, and as the truck moved off, “Near two,” he kept repeating and struggling to understand what had happened to time—had started at six ... and it was “near two” ... “near two” ... two o’clock, that was. He couldn’t piece it together, and he gave it up at last and devoted himself to fitting words and music to the rhythm of the grinding, murmuring truck wheels. Six o’clock ... two o’clock.
It was little wonder he was puzzled. The attack had started at six. But it had taken the stretcher-bearers five hours to carry him some 400 yards.
XXI
THE CONQUERORS