In a moment their sinewy hands had extricated their comrade, and Frank knelt down and lifted Bart’s head in his arms, while Tom tore open their chum’s shirt and put his hand on his heart.
There was a great gash in Bart’s forehead from which the blood had flowed freely. His face was as pale as chalk except where it was streaked with blood, his eyes were closed and he showed no sign of life. But just as Frank was fearing the worst, Tom gave an exclamation of relief.
“He’s alive,” he cried. “His heart is beating.”
“Thank God!” exclaimed Frank fervently and was echoed by Billy. “But I’m afraid he’s pretty badly hurt. We’ve got to get him to the hospital in a hurry.”
He called out to a couple of litter bearers and they hurried toward him. With infinite care and tenderness they lifted Bart and put him on the stretcher. They would have taken him to the hospital themselves, but that was the work of the bearers, and duty held the boys to the line that might at any moment be assailed by the Germans in a counter-attack.
“Good old Bart!” murmured Frank. “He’s alive anyway and while there’s life there’s hope.”
“Bart’s luck will stand by him, all right,” prophesied Billy, reassuringly. “But that was a fearful swipe he had across his forehead. It must have been made by a bayonet.”
“I don’t think so,” said Tom, who had been looking about him. “See that stump? It’s covered with blood. Bart stumbled over a body or something and struck his head against this stump and it’s knocked him out.”
Further conjectures were deferred by a sharp, quick summons for the men to get back into line. An aviator had signaled that the Huns were again preparing to attack with fresh regiments that had been hastily brought up, and the old Thirty-seventh, like the veterans they had become, hurriedly consolidated their positions and awaited the worst that the enemy could bring against them.
Just then there was a stir in the lines and a staff officer, in the uniform of a colonel, came galloping up, attended by an orderly. He dismounted, threw the reins to the orderly and came up to a group of the Thirty-seventh’s officers.