“Let those boys rest for five minutes,” ordered the doctor.
Nurse Helen gently pushed Zaidos down on a bench. He toppled over and she put a folded cloak under his head. Then for thirty happy minutes he lost consciousness of everything. When an aide shook Zaidos awake, he came to himself with as much physical pain as though his body had actually felt the shock of wounds. He groaned involuntarily. Velo was sobbing dryly from fatigue and pain.
“Come, come, boys!” said the doctor. “Finish your good work! Here, take this.” He mixed something in a glass, and gave it to Zaidos, and then repeated the dose for Velo. It braced them at once, and after they had visited the cook house and had taken some hot soup, they prepared to go out on the field again and look for wounded.
The night seemed very dark as they stumbled along. The dead lay piled everywhere in hideous confusion. There seemed to be no wounded. Man after man they scanned with their flashlights. The unsteady lights often gave the dead the effect of motion. As they sent the ray here and there they thought they saw eyes open or close, arms move, legs stretch out, or mangled and tortured bodies twist in agony. But under their exploring hands the dead lay cold.
They reached the first line trench and passed beyond it. Here lay ranks of the enemy, mowed down under the pitiless English fire.
“There is someone living over here,” said Velo. “I heard a groan.”
They turned and found a group of men; three dead, and across their bodies two who surely moved.
Zaidos propped his light on the breast of one of the dead soldiers and lifted the head of a young officer whose shattered leg held him helpless. He was quite conscious, and spoke to Zaidos in a weak whisper.
“I’m gone!” he said. “See what you can do for the man lying on my leg. I would have bled to death long ago if it hadn’t been for his weight.”
Zaidos looked in his kit anxiously. It was almost empty and the bandage was all gone.