I seize him by the arm and shake him. "Up, Albert, if once you lie down you'll never get any farther. Quick, I'll hold you up."
At last we reach a small dug-out. Kropp pitches in and I bandage him up. The shot is just a little above his knee. Then I take a look at myself. My trousers are bloody and my arm, too. Albert binds up my wounds with his field dressing. Already he is no longer able to move his leg, and we both wonder how we managed to get this far. Fear alone made it possible; we would have run even if our feet had been shot off;—we would have run on the stumps.
I can still crawl a little. I call out to a passing ambulance wagon which picks us up. It is full of wounded. There is an army medical lance-corporal with it who sticks an anti-tetanus needle into our chests.
At the dressing station we arrange matters so that we lie side by side. They give us a thin soup which we spoon down greedily and scornfully, because we are accustomed to better times but are hungry all the same.
"Now for home, Albert," I say.
"Let's hope so," he replies, "I only wish I knew what I've got."
The pain increases. The bandages burn like fire. We drink and drink, one glass of water after another.
"How far above the knee am I hit?" asks Kropp.
"At least four inches, Albert," I answer. Actually it is perhaps one.
"I've made up my mind," he says after a while, "if they take off my leg, I'll put an end to it. I won't go through life as a cripple."