“Whizz-bang. Thought you were gone that time, sir,” answered the dirty little man with the dirty rifle. “ ’Tain’t no use going hover again, sir. We’ve been hover three times.”
“Get me another rifle, you son of a bitch,” said Peabody curtly. Something cracked like a whiplash in the air: he felt a terrible kick on his left ear-drum; collapsed to ground.
For a second, the boy lay perfectly still; then, to his utter amazement, he realized that he hadn’t been killed. On the contrary, the shock of that second whizz-bang seemed to have cleared his brain.
He hauled himself up very cautiously; peered over the edge of the shallow trench.
Just above him, the ground rose—two hundred yards of ground—littered with brown heaps—some of them moving—at the top of the slope, more bodies—hundreds of them—hanging grotesquely in the air. He dropped down again. . . .
“How many of us got back, Haddock?”
“Dunno, sir. Old Long. ’E’s just round the corner, sir.”
“Well, you stop here. If you see anything coming, shoot at it!”
The boy bent down; crawled along the trench; ran his head into a man’s knees. “Heasy on there,” growled Long Longstaffe. “Heasy on.” Then looking down, “Sorry, sir. Didn’t know it was you.” The boy gave his instructions; crawled on. Private Longstaffe arranged his elbows in the dirt; kicked his long legs behind him; cuddled the rifle-stock to his cheek. “Carn’t miss the sods from ’ere,” he said to himself. . . . And then, suddenly, he saw a cautious dot bob up on the near skyline. . . .