"What is it, man? Are you wounded?" cried the doctor, rushing up.
"Bruk me blister, sir," replied MacTartan, stolidly, reaching for his bayonet and going on.
That upper zig-zag was clear now; but below in the fog lay another, and another, and another, where the fugitives might be caught. So the battalion charged again and again, while Tompkins coming down quite easily, "a all-fours," fired volleys steadily.
The jest and the earnest of it, what pen can tell?
Till through the fog rang a faint hurrah. The last of the zig-zags had blindly been reached, and neither far nor near upon the hillside down which the battalion had charged in open order, was foe--not to be seen, but felt! The uttermost void was void indeed.
"We've got no dooleys, men," said Dr. Tiernay, wiping his forehead once more, "so the wounded must crawl back to hospital as best they can."
So they crawled. All but Tompkins; the doctor insisted upon carrying him pick-a-back, on the ground that he, the doctor, was the only whole man in the battalion, and was bound to do double work.
And the next morning, when he went his rounds, he stood for a minute or two beside a fretful baby, and then took out his lancet.
"It's against me principles, me dear madam," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders; "for there's a toime for everything, and everything in its toime; and no one, not even a tooth, knows what it would be at till that toime comes. But as I said the throuble would be over, and the rest of it is;--why, I'll keep my word!"
And it was over; for a message saying he was close on the heels of his messenger came from the general in command of relief.