Punch did not stir till long after sunrise, and when he did it was to see that, utterly exhausted, his companion had sunk into a deep sleep, for the rest of that terrible night had been spent in trying to assuage the agony of first one and then another of the most badly wounded who were lying around. Every now and then there had been a piteous appeal for water to slake the burning thirst, and twice over the lad had to pass through the terrible experience of holding the hand of some poor fellow who in the darkness had whispered his last few words as he passed away.
Later on a couple more wounded men had been borne in by the light of a lantern, by whose aid a place was found for them in the already too crowded hut, and it became Pen’s duty to hold the dim open lantern and cast the light so that a busy surgeon, who was already exhausted by his long and terrible duties, could do his best to bandage and stop some wound.
It was just at daylight, in the midst of the terrible silence which had now fallen around, that Pen’s head had sunk slowly down till it rested upon Punch’s shoulder; and when the sun rose at last its horizontal rays lit up the dismal scene, with the elder lad’s pallid and besmirched face, consequent upon the help he had been called upon to render, giving him the appearance of being one of the wounded men.
Chapter Eighteen.
War’s Horrors.
But the morning brought not only the horizontal rays of the great sun which lit up the hut with its sad tale of death and suffering, but likewise a renewal of the fight of the previous day, and this time the tide of battle swept much nearer to the encampment of the wounded.
Punch started out of a state of dreamy calm, and wondered why the noise he heard had not roused up his sleeping comrade, for from apparently quite near at hand came the boom of artillery, a sound which for the moment drowned all others, even the hoarse, harshly uttered words of command, as large bodies of men swung past the doorway of the hut, and the fitful bugle-calls which a minute before had fallen on his ear.
“Ah,” he muttered, “it’s a big fight going on out there. I wonder if those are our guns;” and once more the air was rent by the dull, angry roar of artillery. “Pen! Pen! Oh, I can’t let him sleep! Why doesn’t he wake up? Here, I say, comrade!”