I tried to answer and couldn’t.
Then a tall fellow with set bayonet ran down the pathway. He saw my helpless condition readily enough and strode straight for me.
“British officer,” I was able to whisper. “Wounded.”
“Cheero, sir,” he answered. “Lots of help for you here.”
He lifted me, got a long, strong arm under my shoulders and began leading me along the little path.
And just then the damned battery of the Huns, from which I had so laboriously, painfully and at times helplessly fled, opened up an intensive fire. Not this battery alone, but scores all along the line. But I thought only of that particular battery just then. And no sooner had I thought of it than a shell burst almost upon us. We were slammed to the ground. A burst of light swept the entire position. My companion’s sturdy support fell from me and he uttered a scream. I stared toward him as the dust and smoke cleared away. Simultaneously with the shock or the shell explosion a sniper’s explosive bullet had struck him in the left arm. The dum-dum bullet tore the arm completely from his shoulder. He was looking dazed but conscious.
“See, I’m hit!” he said in child-like astonishment.
“Sorry,” I whispered at him. “Sorry that I was the cause.”
He nodded and tried to smile.
“It’s all in the game,” he answered and fell over.