“I’ll stick with you, General, sir, if ya don’t mind,” Ben piped up. “I’d rather get killed with a General than get drunk with a guy like that pill-roller.... And I’m sure Esky prefers to stick with you, General.”
“Here, too,” I said, and Chilblaines, who must have wanted to go with the guide, found himself plodding along behind the gray-haired old-timer. A queer outfit to be turned loosed in a place like that: four tenderfeet and a scared pup, plowing along in mud that sometimes came up to your knees!
We had not gone very far before it became apparent that the pill-roller was right about the heat of the fray increasing toward the station. The air was full of flying bits of metal, rocks, dirt, gases, and blinding flashes of light. The rain dropped on us and was not noticed in the excitement of picking our way along a few yards at a time. Injury and possible death scraped us close at almost every step.
Yet we probably would have succeeded in reaching the station in safety, if we hadn’t become separated as the result of a series of shells bursting so near that we had to scatter, and we scattered so wide that we couldn’t get together again because of the shells dropping between us.
I found myself with the General and we figured Chilblaines, Ben and Esky must be about two hundred yards across from us, toward the main road again.
I found out later that Ben was yelling my name at the top of his voice, but I never heard him at all, and after we waited several minutes in a vain hope of rejoining them, we finally set off toward the station with the idea that they had probably gone on also.... We stumbled on and on, but it was a long time before we reached that station, and by that time, Ben and his party had been there and gone again.
We very quickly learned the exact nature of the situation: this station was the apex of a triangle, the connecting point in the rear of two wide-flung flanks. So far the enemy fire had been missing the station because it was concentrated on the front and rear, particularly the rear, to prevent any reënforcements or assistance from coming up. The whole business was a useless, promiseless dogfight that had done nothing but stir up a lot of trouble, although the left flank of the American position had been forced back some little distance. Officers in the station told us we were lucky to come through that shelling alive.
And they also told us about Ben and Chilblaines and Esky. It seems that they managed to go straight through to the station, where they promptly inquired about us. But none had seen us, so Ben set off again with Esky at his heels in an effort to find us.... A little later he came back lugging a smallish figure, which he planked on a cot and talked to for a few minutes. Then he found Chilblaines and said, “Captain, you gotta come along! The General’s out there an’ Leony’s out there an’ I can’t carry them both, if they’re hurt!”
But Chilblaines refused to budge.
“Captain,” cried Ben, so loud that everyone in the place heard him, “are ya comin’ or do I have to drag ya?”