“That’s the talk, boy,” said Kentucky. A man hobbling on a stick came in from the doctors’ room, and, seeing Kentucky, picked his way over the outstretched forms to him. “Hello, Kentuck,” he said. “You got your packet passed out to you, then. An’ you, too, Pug?” as he caught sight of Pug’s face half-hidden in bandages.
“Cheer-oh, Jimmy,” said Pug. “Yes, gave me my little sooven-eer all right. An’ the worst of it is I’m afraid they’ve made a mess o’ my fatal beauty.”
“Never min’, Pug,” said Jimmy, chuckling and seating himself beside the stretcher. “I see they’ve lef’ your ’andsome boko in action an’ fully efficient.”
“Wot’s yours?” said Pug with interest. “Oh, nothin’ much,” said the other. “Bit of shrap through the foot. Just good enough for Blighty, an’ nothin’ else to fuss about. How far did you get?”
Pug tried to tell his story, but in spite of himself his voice weakened and slurred, and Kentucky, catching Jimmy’s eye, placed his finger on his lips and nodded significantly towards Pug. Jimmy took the hint promptly. “Hullo, some more o’ the old crush over there,” he said. “I must go’n ’ave a chin-wag with ’em,” and he moved off.
“D’you think you could find me a drink, Kentuck?” said Pug; and Kentucky went and got some from an orderly and brought it and held it to the hot lips. After that he made Pug lie quiet, telling him he was sure it was bad for him to be talking; and because the drug still had a certain amount of hold perhaps, Pug half-drowsed and woke and drowsed again. And each time he woke Kentucky spoke quietly and cheerfully to him, and lied calmly, saying it wasn’t time for him to go yet—although many others had gone and Kentucky had deliberately missed his turn to go for the sake of remaining beside the broken lad. Most of the walking cases went on at once or in company with stretcher parties, but Kentucky let them go and waited on, hour after hour. His own arm and hand were throbbing painfully, and he was feeling cold and sick and deadly tired. He was not sleepy, and this apparently was unusual, for most of the men there, if their pain was not too great, lay or sat and slept the moment they had the chance. Although many went, the room was always full, because others came as fast. The place was lit by a couple of hanging lamps, and blue wreaths of cigarette smoke curled and floated up past their chimneys and drifted up the stairway. Kentucky sat almost opposite the stair, and the lamplight shone on the steps and on the figures that disappeared up it one by one, their legs and feet tramping up after their heads and bodies had passed out of vision. The ground above had evidently been churned into thin mud, and the water from this ran down the stair, and a solid mass of the thicker mud followed gradually and overflowed step by step under the trampling feet. For an hour Kentucky watched it coming lower and lower, and thought disgustedly of the moment when it would reach the floor and be tramped and spread out over it, thick and slimy and filthy. His back began to ache, and the tiredness to grip and numb him, and his thoughts turned with intolerable longing to the moment when he would get off his mud-encrusted clothes and lie in a clean hospital bed. Every now and then some orderlies and bearers clumped down the stair into the dug-out, and after a little stir of preparation a batch of the wounded would walk or be helped or carried up out into the open to start their journey back to the ambulances. But the cleared space they left quickly filled again with the steady inflow of men who came from the doctors’ hands in the other room, and these in their turn settled themselves to wait their turn squatting along the walls or lying patiently on their stretchers. They were all plastered and daubed with wet mud and clay, worn and drooping with pain and fatigue; but all who had a spark of consciousness or energy left were most amazingly cheerful and contented. They smoked cigarettes and exchanged experiences and opinions, and all were most anxious to find out something of how “the show” had gone. It was extraordinary how little they each appeared to know of the fight they had taken such an active part in, how ignorant they were of how well or ill the action had gone as a whole. Some talked very positively, but were promptly questioned or contradicted by others just as positive; others confessed blank ignorance of everything except that they themselves had stayed in some ditch for a certain number of hours, or that the battalion had been “held up” by machine-gun fire; or that the shelling had been “hell.” “But if I’d ’a’ had to ha’ choosed,” said one, “I’d ha’ sooner been under their shell-fire than ours. The Bosche trenches in front o’ us was just blowed out by the roots.”
“Never seed no Bosche trenches myself,” said another. “I dodged along outer one shell-hole inter another for a bit an’ couldn’t see a thing for smoke. An’ then I copped it and crawled back in an’ out more shell-holes. Only dash thing I’ve seed o’ this battle has been shell-holes an’ smoke.”
“Anyways,” put in a man with a bandaged jaw, mumblingly, “if we didn’t see much we heard plenty. I didn’t think a man’s bloomin’ ears would ’ave ’eld so much row at onct.”
“We got heaps an’ heaps o’ prisoners,” said a man from his stretcher. “I saw that much. We muster took a good bit o’ ground to get what I saw myself o’ them.”
“Hadn’t took much where I was,” remarked another. “I didn’t stir out of the trench we occupied till a crump blew me out in a heap.”