"Hullo," I said to one passing through on a stretcher, "got a 'blighty'?"
"Yes, sir," he said; "rather sure Blighty for me."
"And for me too," said another lad lying with him waiting attention, "I shan't be able to play footer any more. Look!" I followed the direction of his finger, and could see through the rough bandages that his foot had been taken completely off. Yet he was still cheerful, and smoking.
A great many asked me as they came through: "Was I in the picture, sir?" I had to say "yes" to them all, which pleased them immensely.
Still no definite news. The heavy firing continued. I noticed several of our wounded men lying in shell-holes in "No Man's Land." They were calling for assistance. Every time a Red Cross man attempted to get near them, a hidden German machine-gun fired. Several were killed whilst trying to bring in the wounded. The cries of one poor fellow attracted the attention of a trench-mortar man. He asked for a volunteer to go with him, and bring the poor fellow in. A man stepped forward, and together they climbed the parapet, and threaded their way through the barbed wire very slowly. Nearer and nearer they crept. We stood watching with bated breath. Would they reach him? Yes. At last! Then hastily binding up the injured man's wounds they picked him up between them, and with a run made for our parapet. The swine of a German blazed away at them with his machine-gun. But marvellous to relate neither of them were touched.
I filmed the rescue from the start to the finish, until they passed me in the trench, a mass of perspiration. Upon the back of one was the unconscious man he had rescued, but twenty minutes after these two had gone through hell to rescue him, the poor fellow died.
During the day those two men rescued twenty men in this fashion under heavy fire.
