The whisky-and-water—a good tumbler-full of which splashed over his face as he drank—woke Peter to effort. He sat up; looked at his throbbing bandaged arm; asked where he was.
Mucksweat explained: “You remember they chalk-heaps, sir. Well, we’re inside one of them. Bombardier said I was to wait here till he come back. That’s why I was waiting upstairs, sir.”
“Who bandaged this arm of mine?”
“I did, sir.”
“Good lad.” Gradually, Peter’s aching brain pieced the situation together. He could just remember the scramble out of the sunken road, the hammer-clang on his helmet. “Where’s the Bombardier gone to?”
“I dunno, sir. He said he was agoing to do your job.”
“Agoing to do your job.” The words acted like a spur on Peter’s dazed mind. “Do my job”—he echoed—“I’ll see the fellow damned first. Give me a hand, will you?”
Wonderingly, the coal-miner obeyed; and Peter staggered somehow to his feet. The dug-out spun round him; his arm hurt abominably; but he was going to do his job—oh, undoubtedly, he was going to do his job. It lay, the job he was going to do, somewhere up above—up those damned steps—blast the steps—there must be millions of them—and the light atop of them had gone out. . . .
“Better lay him down again,” said the infantry subaltern calmly. “I expect it’s only a faint.”
He lit a cigarette, looked down at his own legs, both broken by machine-gun bullets, thought: “They can’t get us away before dark”; and went to sleep.