Off to the side, 200 yards, blue flames shot up and glared. Hal was alive, that meant—at least, he had been alive a moment ago, calling shells upon himself from the French batteries, as well as attack from the Germans coming from the ground.
For the shells already were arriving; one burst just beside the great causeway and blocked it.
The shell annihilated the men rushing at Chester. He rolled over, deaf and unseeing. Shells were coming true and straight. An aeroplane appeared overhead so close down that Chester could see it plainly in the light of the star-shells when his sight came back. Aeroplanes were guiding the guns and dropping aerial torpedoes.
One landed in the mouth of that other causeway and blew it out of shape, and this was the last thing which, for a long time, Chester remembered.
When Chester opened his eyes, he lay on a bed with the whitest of sheets. For a moment he could remember nothing, then the details of the great battle carve back to him.
His first thought, naturally, was of Hal. He sat up in bed. There, in another bed in the center of what Chester now recognized as a hospital tent, lay Hal, his head swathed in bandages.
"He's safe, anyhow," said Chester to himself.
The lad passed a hand across his head, and ascertained that his head also was wrapped tightly, and that there were more bandages around his body.
"Wonder what's the matter with me?" he muttered. "I don't remember being hit, and here I am all wrapped up like a baby doll. I must be in pretty bad shape."
Nevertheless, now that his mind had been eased regarding Hal's safety,
Chester soon closed his eyes, again and slept.