The young private felt his heart sink again as he recalled the way in which the boy had staggered and fallen from the edge of the track above him. Then, in answer to the appeal for help, he passed his rifle over his body, and, wrenching himself round, he managed to lower himself beyond the mass of rock so as to get beneath and obtain its shelter from those passing along the ledge, but only to slip suddenly for a yard or two, with the result that the shrubs over which he had passed sprang up again and supplied the shelter which he sought.
“Punch! Punch! Where are you?” he whispered, as, satisfied now that he could not be seen from above, he raised his head a little and tried to make out him whom he sought.
But all was perfectly still about where he lay, while the sound of musketry came rolling and echoing along the narrow ravine; and above the trees, in the direction in which his friends must be, there was a rising and ever-thickening cloud of smoke.
Then for a few minutes the firing ceased, and in the midst of the intense silence there arose from the bushes just above the listener’s head a quick twittering of premonitory notes, followed by the sharp, clear, ringing song of a bird, which thrilled the lad with a feeling of hope in the midst of what the moment before had been a silence that was awful.
Then from close at hand came a low, piteous groan, and a familiar voice muttered, “The cowards—to leave a comrade like this!”
Chapter Two.
Poor Punch.
Private Gray, of his Majesty’s —th Rifles,—wrenched himself round once more, pressed aside a clump of heathery growth, crawled quickly about a couple of yards, and found himself lying face to face with the bugler of his company.