“Much hurt?” I asked, hurrying to his side, dragging out my handkerchief the while.
“No!” he roared; “only a scratch. Back to your place, sir! Who told you to leave? Here; stop! As you are here you may as well tie that rag round it.”
He said these last words more gently, and smiled as I rapidly bound up his injury as well as I could.
“Thank ye, my lad,” he said. “I must preserve discipline, and we’re getting pressed. Taken off a bit of the middle finger—hasn’t it?”
“Half of it, I’m afraid,” I said.
“What have you got to be afraid of? Might have been worse. Suppose it had been the first finger; then I shouldn’t have been able to draw trigger—eh? That’ll do—won’t it? I’m in a hurry.”
“I haven’t stopped the bleeding,” I replied.
“Never mind. Mother Nature will soon do that. Now then, back you go. Show them how you young farmers can shoot.”
I was on my way back to my place when the clattering of hoofs made me turn my head, and I saw a man in the Light Horse uniform come galloping up, utterly regardless of the danger he ran from obstructing stones.
“Back!” he shouted. “Retire on the main body as fast as you can go. Colonel’s orders.”