Searchlights were on him nearly all the time, while bullets whistled past him and shells ploughed up the ground. He still pegged away at his noble work, until a bullet found him as he was bringing in his twentieth man—an English Captain. He had just managed to roll into the crater with his burden and then collapsed. The Red Cross picked them all up the next afternoon.
Henare was in the hospital when he came to. He was staring wildly [pg 44] at the man in the next cot—a big, brown man, bandaged, but grinning away cheerfully.
Yes! it was Wiremu all right. He had finally enlisted and the military training had made a man of him. In a desperate battle Wiremu was badly wounded, and was one of the first men that Henare had carried to the crater.
When Henare had got over the shock of meeting Wiremu, he asked after Kiri.
"Oh, she all right Henare, when I left Noo Zealan. She no forget you. She te brick."
[pg 45] And so, far into the night, the gentle murmur of musical Maori was heard as these two wounded heroes discussed the war, and old time quarrels, and Kiri's loyalty to Henare, and also the good times they themselves would have together in New Zealand, when the war was won.
